🔗 Share this article BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Says Broadcasting Watchdog The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom. An probe by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate". The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness". The authority has directed the corporation to air a prime-time declaration about its findings. "As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read. 'Risk to Erode Credibility' The watchdog's report said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father held a role in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive. "It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the details he presented. "Trust is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster. "This error had the potential to erode the significantly high amounts of credibility that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war." The film was removed from iPlayer in February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the corporation's content policies on accuracy. A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations. "We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and language are determined."