🔗 Share this article British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Media Regulations, Says Ofcom The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom. An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate". The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness". The authority has instructed the broadcaster to air a evening announcement about its findings. "Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," it said. 'Risk to Damage Confidence' The authority's announcement stated: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive. "Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the details he presented. "Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster. "This oversight had the potential to erode the very considerable degrees of credibility that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza." The programme was pulled from the online platform in February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy. A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code. "We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."