🔗 Share this article BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Broadcasting Watchdog The BBC committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom. An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "significantly deceptive". The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness". The regulator has instructed the BBC to air a prime-time statement about its decisions. "As this represents a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read. 'Potential to Undermine Trust' The watchdog's announcement said: "Our investigation determined that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate. "It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the content he presented. "Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation. "This oversight had the risk to erode the very considerable levels of credibility that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict." The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on accuracy. A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards. "We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."