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The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.

An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".

The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".

The authority has ordered the corporation to air a evening announcement about its conclusions.

"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a statement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.

'Risk to Undermine Credibility'

The regulator's report stated: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's father held a role in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.

"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the details he shared.

"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This failing had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."

The programme was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the organization's content policies on factual correctness.

A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

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