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The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.

An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "significantly deceptive".

The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".

The authority has directed the corporation to air a prime-time announcement about its decisions.

"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.

'Potential to Erode Confidence'

The authority's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.

"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the presenter and the content he presented.

"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.

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

The documentary was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.

A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and wording are determined."