🔗 Share this article British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Major' Violation of Media Rules, Says UK Media Regulator The BBC committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom. An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive". The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness". Ofcom has directed the corporation to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its findings. "Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the statement read. 'Possibility to Erode Trust' The authority's report stated: "Our probe concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate. "This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the details he provided. "Credibility is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster. "This error had the possibility to erode the very considerable amounts of trust that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war." The programme was removed from iPlayer in last February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it breached the corporation's content policies on accuracy. A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations. "We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."