🔗 Share this article BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Media Regulations, Declares Ofcom The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom. An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate". The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness". Ofcom has directed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its decisions. "Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated. 'Potential to Erode Trust' The authority's report declared: "Our probe found that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father held a role in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate. "It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the information he shared. "Credibility is at the center of the connection between a television network and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation. "This oversight had the possibility to undermine the very considerable levels of confidence that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict." The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness. A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations. "We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."