🔗 Share this article BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Significant' Violation of Media Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom. An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive". The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness". The authority has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time announcement about its conclusions. "As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to air a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," it said. 'Potential to Undermine Trust' The authority's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father held a role in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate. "Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he shared. "Credibility is at the center of the bond between a television network and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster. "This error had the risk to undermine the very considerable levels of trust that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict." The film was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's family links emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the corporation's content policies on truthfulness. A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code. "We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."