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The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas official, according to regulatory body Ofcom.

An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".

The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".

The authority has instructed the BBC to transmit a peak-time announcement about its findings.

"As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.

'Potential to Undermine Confidence'

The regulator's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent held a position in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.

"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the details he shared.

"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.

"This oversight had the risk to erode the significantly high degrees of trust that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."

The film was removed from the online platform in last February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.

A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."