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The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.

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

The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".

The authority has directed the BBC to air a prime-time statement about its findings.

"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to air a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," it said.

'Risk to Erode Confidence'

The watchdog's statement said: "Our investigation found that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.

"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the information he shared.

"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.

"This oversight had the potential to erode the very considerable amounts of confidence that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."

The film was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.

A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."