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The public service broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.

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

The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".

The authority has instructed the BBC to transmit a prime-time statement about its conclusions.

"As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the BBC to transmit a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," it said.

'Potential to Erode Credibility'

The watchdog's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.

"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he provided.

"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This failing had the risk to erode the significantly high levels of confidence that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."

The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.

A corporation official stated: "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 corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and language are confirmed."