đź”— Share this article BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Media Standards, States Ofcom The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom. An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive". The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy". The regulator has ordered the BBC to air a peak-time statement about its findings. "Since this amounts to a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated. 'Potential to Erode Credibility' The authority's report said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent occupied a post in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading. "This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the details he presented. "Trust is at the core of the bond between a television network and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster. "This failing had the potential to undermine the significantly high amounts of credibility that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza." The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review found it breached the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy. A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code. "We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are determined."