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The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "materially misleading".

The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".

The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its findings.

"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.

'Possibility to Undermine Trust'

The watchdog's report declared: "Our investigation determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent served in a position in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.

"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he shared.

"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This error had the possibility to erode the significantly high levels of credibility that viewers would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."

The programme was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.

A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and language are determined."