🔗 Share this article BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom. An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading". The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness". The regulator has directed the corporation to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its findings. "As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated. 'Potential to Erode Credibility' The regulator's report declared: "Our probe concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive. "It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he provided. "Credibility is at the core of the bond between a television network and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster. "This failing had the possibility to undermine the significantly high amounts of confidence that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza." The film was removed from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy. A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code. "We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."