🔗 Share this article British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Media Standards, Declares Ofcom The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, according to regulatory body Ofcom. An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate". The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness". The regulator has ordered the BBC to broadcast a evening announcement about its conclusions. "As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to air a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated. 'Potential to Undermine Credibility' The watchdog's statement stated: "Our probe found that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's father occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate. "This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the details he shared. "Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC. "This error had the possibility to erode the exceptionally strong amounts of credibility that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza." The documentary was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy. A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations. "We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."