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The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.

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

The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".

The regulator has directed the corporation to air a peak-time statement about its decisions.

"As this represents a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.

'Potential to Damage Confidence'

The regulator's announcement said: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's parent held a post in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.

"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he presented.

"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.

"This oversight had the risk to undermine the very considerable amounts of trust that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."

The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.

A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."