🔗 Share this article British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom. An investigation by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading". The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy". The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time declaration about its decisions. "Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated. 'Potential to Erode Confidence' The watchdog's statement stated: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's parent occupied a post in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive. "This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the information he provided. "Trust is at the center of the connection between a television network and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation. "This error had the potential to erode the significantly high levels of confidence that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza." The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the corporation's content policies on factual correctness. A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code. "We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and language are determined."