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The public service broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.

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

The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".

Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a evening statement about its conclusions.

"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to transmit a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.

'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'

The watchdog's statement declared: "Our investigation concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's parent served in a role in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.

"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the information he provided.

"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its audience, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.

"This failing had the potential to damage the very considerable levels of confidence that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."

The film was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on accuracy.

A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."