🔗 Share this article BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Ofcom The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom. An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive". The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness". The regulator has directed the broadcaster to transmit a evening announcement about its findings. "Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read. 'Potential to Erode Trust' The regulator's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father occupied a post in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading. "Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he presented. "Confidence is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation. "This oversight had the risk to undermine the very considerable levels of credibility that viewers would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict." The programme was pulled from iPlayer in February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy. A representative for the broadcaster 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 broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards. "We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and language are determined."