🔗 Share this article BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Significant' Breach of Media Rules, Says UK Media Regulator 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 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 film was "materially misleading". The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy". The regulator has instructed the BBC to air a evening announcement about its decisions. "Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read. 'Possibility to Damage Trust' The authority's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's father held a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive. "Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the details he presented. "Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster. "This oversight had the risk to damage the significantly high amounts of credibility that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war." The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on accuracy. A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code. "We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."