🔗 Share this article BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, States UK Media Regulator The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom. An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "materially misleading". The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy". The authority has instructed the corporation to air a prime-time announcement about its decisions. "Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," it said. 'Risk to Undermine Trust' The watchdog's report said: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate. "It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the content he presented. "Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC. "This error had the potential to erode the very considerable degrees of credibility that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict." The programme was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness. A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with 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 adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."