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The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

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

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

Ofcom has directed the corporation to air a prime-time declaration about its decisions.

"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.

'Possibility to Undermine Trust'

The authority's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.

"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the content he provided.

"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.

"This error had the risk to damage the significantly high levels of confidence that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."

The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.

A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

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