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The public service broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".

The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".

Ofcom has ordered the BBC to air a evening declaration about its findings.

"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to air a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," it said.

'Potential to Damage Trust'

The regulator's report said: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.

"It meant that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he provided.

"Confidence is at the center of the bond 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 erode the very considerable levels of trust that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."

The film was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.

A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

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