🔗 Share this article British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom. An probe by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive". The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness". Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time declaration about its conclusions. "Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the BBC to air a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," it said. 'Possibility to Erode Credibility' The watchdog's announcement said: "Our investigation determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father held a post in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate. "This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the details he shared. "Credibility is at the core of the connection between a television network and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation. "This oversight had the possibility to erode the very considerable degrees of confidence that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza." The film was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness. A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards. "We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."