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The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".

The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".

The regulator has ordered the corporation to broadcast a evening declaration about its findings.

"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the BBC to air a statement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," it said.

'Potential to Damage Trust'

The regulator's report declared: "Our investigation determined that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's father served in a position in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.

"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the content he presented.

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

"This failing had the potential to erode the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."

The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.

A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and language are confirmed."