🔗 Share this article BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Media Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom. An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "significantly deceptive". The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy". The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a evening statement about its conclusions. "Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated. 'Risk to Erode Trust' The watchdog's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent served in a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading. "It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he presented. "Confidence is at the center of the connection between a television network and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC. "This failing had the potential to erode the very considerable degrees of confidence that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war." The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy. A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards. "We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."