🔗 Share this article British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, States Ofcom The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom. An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate". The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness". The regulator has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a evening announcement about its findings. "Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated. 'Possibility to Damage Trust' The authority's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive. "Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he provided. "Credibility is at the core of the bond between a television network and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation. "This failing had the possibility to undermine the significantly high amounts of trust that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war." The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it infringed the organization's content policies on accuracy. A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards. "We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and language are finalised."