🔗 Share this article British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, States UK Media Regulator The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom. An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive". The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness". Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to air a evening statement about its findings. "As this represents a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to air a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated. 'Risk to Erode Confidence' The authority's statement said: "Our probe determined that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's father occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading. "This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he shared. "Trust is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC. "This oversight had the risk to undermine the very considerable degrees of confidence that audiences would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war." The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness. A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations. "We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised."