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The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".

The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".

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

"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to air a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.

'Possibility to Erode Credibility'

The regulator's statement stated: "Our probe found that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's parent held a position in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.

"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he shared.

"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.

"This oversight had the potential to erode the significantly high amounts of credibility that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."

The film was pulled from the online platform in last February after the boy's family links emerged, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.

A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."