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The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".

The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".

Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its decisions.

"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.

'Risk to Undermine Credibility'

The regulator's announcement stated: "Our investigation found that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's father occupied a role in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.

"Consequently that the audience 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 connection between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.

"This failing had the possibility to erode the very considerable levels of credibility that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."

The documentary was removed from the online platform in last February after the boy's family links came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.

A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

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