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The BBC committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.

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

The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".

Ofcom has directed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its decisions.

"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.

'Potential to Erode Trust'

The authority's announcement stated: "Our investigation found that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent held a position in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.

"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the information he shared.

"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.

"This error had the risk to damage the significantly high amounts of credibility that audiences would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."

The film was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's family links emerged, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.

A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and language are finalised."