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The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the child 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 found that the documentary was "materially misleading".

The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".

Ofcom has instructed the BBC to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its decisions.

"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the corporation to air a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.

'Risk to Damage Trust'

The authority's report stated: "Our investigation found that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.

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

"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This oversight had the potential to erode the exceptionally strong levels of trust that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."

The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review found it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.

A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"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 language are determined."