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The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "significantly deceptive".

The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".

The authority has instructed the BBC to transmit a evening declaration about its findings.

"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to transmit a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.

'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'

The regulator's announcement said: "Our probe found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father occupied a post in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.

"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the content he provided.

"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This error had the risk to undermine the very considerable degrees of confidence that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."

The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the boy's family links came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.

A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and wording are determined."