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The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom.

An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".

The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".

The authority has ordered the corporation to broadcast a evening declaration about its conclusions.

"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are directing the BBC to air a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.

'Potential to Damage Trust'

The watchdog's statement declared: "Our investigation found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.

"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the information he presented.

"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.

"This failing had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."

The programme was removed from the online platform in February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.

A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."