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The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.

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

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

The authority has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time statement about its conclusions.

"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.

'Risk to Damage Credibility'

The regulator's report said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.

"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the details he shared.

"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.

"This oversight had the risk to undermine the significantly high degrees of trust that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."

The film was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in July an internal BBC review determined it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.

A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."