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The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.

An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".

The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".

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

"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.

'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'

The regulator's statement declared: "Our probe found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's father held a post in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.

"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the information he presented.

"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.

"This failing had the potential to undermine the significantly high degrees of credibility that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."

The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.

A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and language are determined."