🔗 Share this article British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, States Ofcom The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom. An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading". The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy". The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a evening statement about its findings. "As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read. 'Possibility to Erode Credibility' The regulator's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's parent held a role in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive. "This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the content he provided. "Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation. "This oversight had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that audiences would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza." The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness. A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards. "We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."