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The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.

An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".

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

Ofcom has directed the corporation to broadcast a evening statement about its conclusions.

"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.

'Potential to Undermine Trust'

The watchdog's statement stated: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's father occupied a position in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.

"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the information he provided.

"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.

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

The programme was pulled from the online platform in February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in July an internal BBC review found it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on accuracy.

A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised."