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The BBC committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

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

The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".

The regulator has instructed the corporation to transmit a peak-time declaration about its decisions.

"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.

'Possibility to Erode Confidence'

The watchdog's statement declared: "Our investigation found that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent served in a position in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.

"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the content he provided.

"Confidence is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This failing had the possibility to undermine the significantly high levels of confidence that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."

The film was removed from the online platform in February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.

A BBC spokesperson said: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and wording are determined."