🔗 Share this article British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom. An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading". The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness". The regulator has instructed the BBC to broadcast a peak-time statement about its findings. "Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the statement read. 'Potential to Undermine Confidence' The watchdog's announcement said: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate. "It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the information he shared. "Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation. "This failing had the risk to damage the very considerable levels of confidence that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war." The programme was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness. A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in line with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film 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 full. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and language are determined."