🔗 Share this article BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Ofcom The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom. An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate". The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy". The authority has ordered the corporation to air a evening statement about its decisions. "As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," it said. 'Risk to Erode Confidence' The authority's report said: "Our investigation found that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate. "This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he shared. "Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster. "This oversight had the risk to damage the very considerable levels of confidence that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza." The documentary was pulled from the online platform in February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy. A corporation official said: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code. "We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised."