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The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.

An probe by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".

The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".

Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to air a peak-time declaration about its decisions.

"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.

'Potential to Damage Credibility'

The regulator's report stated: "Our probe found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.

"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the presenter and the details he shared.

"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This failing had the potential to damage the very considerable degrees of confidence that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."

The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.

A BBC spokesperson commented: "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 BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and wording are determined."