🔗 Share this article British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Ofcom The BBC engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom. An investigation by the media regulator into 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 serious error in relation to truthfulness". The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time announcement about its conclusions. "Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read. 'Potential to Damage Credibility' The regulator's statement stated: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father served in a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive. "This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the details he provided. "Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation. "This error had the potential to undermine the significantly high degrees of credibility that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war." The film was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness. A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards. "We have apologised for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are determined."