🔗 Share this article BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, States Ofcom The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom. An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "materially misleading". The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness". Ofcom has instructed the BBC to broadcast a evening statement about its findings. "Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be determined," the statement read. 'Possibility to Undermine Confidence' The watchdog's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive. "Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the information he shared. "Confidence is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation. "This failing had the potential to erode the significantly high levels of confidence that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict." The film was pulled from the online platform in February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness. A BBC spokesperson said: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to 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 follow the sanction as soon as the timing and language are determined."