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The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.

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

The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".

The authority has directed the corporation to air a evening statement about its conclusions.

"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the statement read.

'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'

The authority's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.

"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he shared.

"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This error had the risk to erode the significantly high degrees of credibility that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."

The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.

A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and language are determined."