🔗 Share this article British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Standards, Says Broadcasting Watchdog The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, 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 head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness". Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to air a evening statement about its decisions. "Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated. 'Potential to Erode Credibility' The watchdog's report stated: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate. "This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the presenter and the content he presented. "Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster. "This failing had the potential to damage the significantly high amounts of trust that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza." The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on accuracy. A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards. "We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and wording are determined."