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The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.

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

The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".

The regulator has instructed the BBC to air a prime-time announcement about its decisions.

"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," it said.

'Potential to Damage Trust'

The authority's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.

"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the content he shared.

"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This failing had the potential to erode the very considerable amounts of confidence that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."

The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.

A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."