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The BBC committed a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

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

The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".

Ofcom has instructed the BBC to air a peak-time announcement about its findings.

"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.

'Potential to Damage Confidence'

The watchdog's report declared: "Our probe determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's parent occupied a post in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive.

"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the details he provided.

"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a television network and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.

"This failing had the risk to damage the significantly high levels of confidence that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."

The programme was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.

A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and wording are finalised."