🔗 Share this article British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom. An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive". The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy". The authority has instructed the BBC to broadcast a evening announcement about its decisions. "As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read. 'Possibility to Damage Confidence' The watchdog's statement said: "Our investigation found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent served in a position in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading. "Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the information he shared. "Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation. "This failing had the possibility to undermine the very considerable levels of trust that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict." The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness. A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards. "We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and wording are determined."