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The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".

The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".

The authority has ordered the corporation to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its findings.

"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.

'Potential to Damage Confidence'

The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our investigation found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.

"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the information he shared.

"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a television network and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This failing had the possibility to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."

The film was removed from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.

A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, 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 its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."