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The BBC committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

An probe by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".

The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".

The authority has instructed the BBC to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its findings.

"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.

'Risk to Damage Credibility'

The authority's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent held a post in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.

"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the details he shared.

"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This failing had the possibility to undermine the significantly high amounts of credibility that viewers would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."

The documentary was pulled from the online platform in last February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.

A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and language are determined."