🔗 Share this article British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Ofcom The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom. An probe by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading". The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness". The regulator has instructed the BBC to transmit a peak-time declaration about its findings. "Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated. 'Possibility to Erode Confidence' The regulator's announcement stated: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading. "This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the content he provided. "Trust is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC. "This error had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza." The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the narrator's family links came to light, and in July an internal BBC review determined it breached the corporation's content policies on factual correctness. A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations. "We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."