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The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.

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

The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".

The regulator has instructed the corporation to transmit a evening statement about its conclusions.

"As this represents a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.

'Risk to Undermine Trust'

The watchdog's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's parent served in a position in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.

"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he presented.

"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This failing had the risk to damage the very considerable levels of credibility that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."

The documentary was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.

A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and language are determined."