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The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

An probe by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".

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

Ofcom has ordered the BBC to air a evening declaration about its conclusions.

"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.

'Possibility to Damage Credibility'

The regulator's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's father occupied a role in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.

"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the presenter and the content he presented.

"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.

"This failing had the risk to damage the very considerable amounts of trust that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."

The documentary was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's family links came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy.

A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."