🔗 Share this article BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom. An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate". The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness". The authority has instructed the corporation to air a peak-time statement about its findings. "As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated. 'Risk to Erode Trust' The authority's report stated: "Our probe concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's father occupied a position in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading. "It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the content he provided. "Trust is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation. "This oversight had the risk to damage the very considerable amounts of confidence that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict." The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness. A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code. "We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and language are determined."