đź”— Share this article British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Standards, States Ofcom The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom. An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive". The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy". The regulator has ordered the corporation to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its decisions. "Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read. 'Potential to Undermine Trust' The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our probe found that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading. "It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he presented. "Credibility is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation. "This error had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict." The documentary was pulled from the online platform in last February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in July an internal BBC review found it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness. A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations. "We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and language are determined."