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The BBC committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.

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

The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".

The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its decisions.

"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the BBC to air a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.

'Possibility to Erode Confidence'

The authority's statement stated: "Our investigation found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent occupied a post in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.

"It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the content he presented.

"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This error had the possibility to undermine the significantly high levels of confidence that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."

The film was removed from the online platform in February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy.

A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and wording are finalised."