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The BBC committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.

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

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

The regulator has instructed the corporation to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.

"As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.

'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'

The regulator's announcement stated: "Our probe concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's father held a position in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.

"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he shared.

"Trust is at the center of the bond between a television network and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.

"This failing had the potential to damage the very considerable degrees of confidence that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."

The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.

A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."