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The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.

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

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

The regulator has directed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its findings.

"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to air a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.

'Possibility to Erode Credibility'

The regulator's statement declared: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's father held a role in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.

"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he provided.

"Trust is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its audience, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

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

The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.

A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."