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The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

An investigation by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".

The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".

The regulator has instructed the corporation to air a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.

"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to transmit a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the statement read.

'Potential to Erode Confidence'

The watchdog's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.

"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he shared.

"Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.

"This failing had the potential to erode the very considerable amounts of trust that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."

The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.

A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."