🔗 Share this article BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Media Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom. An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "materially misleading". The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy". The authority has directed the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time declaration about its decisions. "Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the BBC to air a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," it said. 'Possibility to Undermine Trust' The watchdog's statement declared: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father occupied a position in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive. "It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the content he shared. "Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC. "This oversight had the potential to undermine the very considerable amounts of trust that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza." The film was pulled from iPlayer in February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy. A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations. "We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and wording are determined."