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The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.

An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".

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

The regulator has directed the BBC to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.

"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to air a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," the statement read.

'Possibility to Erode Credibility'

The regulator's announcement stated: "Our investigation determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father occupied a position in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.

"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the information he shared.

"Trust is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This failing had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."

The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.

A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."