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The BBC committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.

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

The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".

Ofcom has instructed the corporation to air a prime-time statement about its conclusions.

"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," it said.

'Potential to Damage Credibility'

The watchdog's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's father occupied a position in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.

"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he shared.

"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.

"This oversight had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of credibility that audiences would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."

The documentary was removed from iPlayer in February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.

A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."