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The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "materially misleading".

The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".

The authority has instructed the corporation to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its findings.

"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to air a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.

'Possibility to Damage Confidence'

The watchdog's report declared: "Our probe found that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent held a role in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.

"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he shared.

"Confidence is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.

"This error had the possibility to undermine the very considerable levels of credibility that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."

The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.

A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and language are determined."