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The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.

An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "materially misleading".

The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".

Ofcom has instructed the BBC to air a prime-time announcement about its findings.

"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are directing the corporation to air a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be determined," it said.

'Possibility to Erode Confidence'

The watchdog's report declared: "Our probe found that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.

"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he provided.

"Trust is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.

"This oversight had the possibility to erode the very considerable levels of trust that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."

The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.

A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

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