π Share this article British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, Says Ofcom The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom. An probe by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive". The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy". Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to transmit a evening declaration about its conclusions. "As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the BBC to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be determined," it said. 'Possibility to Undermine Confidence' The watchdog's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading. "This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the content he shared. "Confidence is at the core of the bond between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC. "This failing had the possibility to damage 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 The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the organization's content policies on factual correctness. A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations. "We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and language are determined."