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The BBC committed a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.

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

The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".

The authority has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a evening declaration about its conclusions.

"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," it said.

'Potential to Erode Trust'

The regulator's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's father occupied a role in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.

"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the details he shared.

"Trust is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.

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

The documentary was pulled from the online platform in February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.

A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."