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The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.

An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".

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

The authority has directed the corporation to air a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.

"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be determined," it said.

'Potential to Erode Trust'

The watchdog's report stated: "Our probe concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.

"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he shared.

"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.

"This oversight had the potential to erode the significantly high amounts of credibility that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."

The film was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.

A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and language are determined."