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The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.

An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".

The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".

Ofcom has directed the BBC to transmit a evening announcement about its conclusions.

"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," it said.

'Potential to Damage Confidence'

The authority's statement declared: "Our investigation determined that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's parent served in a position in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.

"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the information he presented.

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

"This error had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."

The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.

A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."