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The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.

An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".

The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".

The authority has instructed the BBC to air a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.

"As this represents a significant violation of our code, we are directing the BBC to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," it said.

'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'

The authority's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's father held a post in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.

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

"Trust is at the core of the connection between a television network and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.

"This failing had the potential to erode the very considerable amounts of confidence that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."

The film was removed from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.

A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and language are finalised."