🔗 Share this article British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Media Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom. An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "significantly deceptive". The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy". The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to air a peak-time statement about its findings. "As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read. 'Potential to Damage Confidence' The watchdog's report declared: "Our investigation concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's parent occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive. "This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the presenter and the information he provided. "Confidence is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster. "This error had the risk to erode the significantly high amounts of confidence that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza." The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness. A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards. "We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."