🔗 Share this article BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog The BBC committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom. An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive". The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness". Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a evening declaration about its findings. "Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to air a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated. 'Possibility to Erode Credibility' The watchdog's announcement declared: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's parent held a post in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive. "This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the presenter and the information he shared. "Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC. "This oversight had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war." The film was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's family links came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness. A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations. "We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."