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The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.

An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".

The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".

The authority has instructed the corporation to air a evening statement about its findings.

"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," it said.

'Risk to Undermine Trust'

The watchdog's report declared: "Our probe concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent served in a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.

"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the content he provided.

"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.

"This failing had the possibility to undermine the significantly high levels of confidence that audiences would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."

The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the corporation's content policies on accuracy.

A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."