🔗 Share this article British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Ofcom The BBC committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom. An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate". The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy". The authority has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a evening declaration about its decisions. "As this represents a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated. 'Risk to Erode Credibility' The authority's report said: "Our investigation found that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate. "This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the information he shared. "Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster. "This error had the possibility to damage the very considerable amounts of trust that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict." The film was pulled from the online platform in February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy. A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards. "We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are determined."