🔗 Share this article British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog The BBC engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom. An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate". The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness". The regulator has directed the broadcaster to transmit a evening announcement about its decisions. "As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," it said. 'Risk to Damage Credibility' The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's father served in a post in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate. "This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the details he presented. "Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a television network and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation. "This error had the potential to undermine the very considerable amounts of credibility that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war." The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on accuracy. A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code. "We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."