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The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

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

The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".

Ofcom has directed the BBC to air a evening declaration about its findings.

"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.

'Risk to Erode Credibility'

The watchdog's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent served in a role in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.

"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he shared.

"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.

"This failing had the potential to undermine the significantly high degrees of trust that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."

The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it breached the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.

A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."