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The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.

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

The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".

The regulator has ordered the corporation to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its decisions.

"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," it said.

'Possibility to Damage Trust'

The authority's statement declared: "Our probe found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent served in a post in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.

"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the content he provided.

"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.

"This error had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."

The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the organization's content policies on accuracy.

A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."