🔗 Share this article British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Media Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom. An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate". The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy". The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to air a peak-time declaration about its decisions. "Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," it said. 'Risk to Undermine Confidence' The watchdog's announcement declared: "Our probe determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's father occupied a post in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive. "Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the presenter and the content he shared. "Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation. "This oversight had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of credibility that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war." The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness. A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations. "We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."