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The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.

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

The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".

The authority has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time statement about its decisions.

"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," it said.

'Potential to Undermine Credibility'

The authority's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.

"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he presented.

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

"This error had the risk to undermine the significantly high degrees of trust that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."

The documentary was removed from the online platform in last February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.

A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and wording are determined."