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The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".

The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".

Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to air a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.

"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.

'Risk to Damage Confidence'

The watchdog's statement declared: "Our investigation found that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent held a position in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.

"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the details he provided.

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

"This error had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."

The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.

A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."