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The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to regulatory body Ofcom.

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

The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".

Ofcom has ordered the BBC to air a evening announcement about its conclusions.

"As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.

'Possibility to Erode Confidence'

The authority's announcement declared: "Our investigation found that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.

"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the presenter and the content he provided.

"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.

"This error had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."

The documentary was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.

A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and wording are determined."