🔗 Share this article British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Breach of Media Standards, States Ofcom The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom. An probe by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate". The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy". Ofcom has directed the BBC to air a evening declaration about its decisions. "Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the corporation to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," it said. 'Possibility to Undermine Confidence' The watchdog's statement declared: "Our probe determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading. "It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the information he shared. "Trust is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation. "This oversight had the possibility to erode the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war." The documentary was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the narrator's family links came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness. A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards. "We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and language are finalised."