🔗 Share this article British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Rules, Declares Ofcom The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom. An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading". The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness". Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to transmit a evening declaration about its findings. "Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the BBC to air a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," it said. 'Potential to Erode Trust' The regulator's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent served in a role in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate. "It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the details he shared. "Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC. "This oversight had the risk to undermine the very considerable degrees of confidence that viewers would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza." The programme was removed from iPlayer in last February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness. A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations. "We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are determined."