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The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.

An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".

The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".

The authority has directed the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time announcement about its findings.

"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the corporation to air a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.

'Potential to Damage Trust'

The watchdog's report said: "Our probe found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.

"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the details he shared.

"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This error had the potential to damage the significantly high levels of credibility that viewers would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."

The film was removed from the online platform in last February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the organization's content policies on accuracy.

A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."