🔗 Share this article BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Broadcasting Watchdog The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom. An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading". The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy". The regulator has instructed the BBC to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its findings. "As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to air a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the statement read. 'Potential to Erode Trust' The regulator's statement stated: "Our investigation found that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's father held a role in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading. "This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the details he shared. "Confidence is at the center of the bond between a television network and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster. "This error had the potential to undermine the very considerable amounts of confidence that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war." The documentary was removed from the online platform in last February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the organization's content policies on factual correctness. A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations. "We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and wording are finalised."