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The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.

An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".

The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".

The regulator has directed the BBC to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its findings.

"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.

'Possibility to Erode Trust'

The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our investigation found that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's father held a position in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.

"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the details he presented.

"Trust is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This error had the possibility to undermine the significantly high degrees of credibility that audiences would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."

The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.

A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and language are confirmed."