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The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.

An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "materially misleading".

The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".

Ofcom has directed the BBC to air a prime-time declaration about its findings.

"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.

'Potential to Damage Trust'

The regulator's announcement stated: "Our probe concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's parent served in a post in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.

"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he presented.

"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This failing had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."

The documentary was removed from iPlayer in February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.

A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

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