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The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.

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

The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".

The regulator has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time statement about its decisions.

"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be determined," it said.

'Risk to Undermine Trust'

The authority's announcement stated: "Our probe found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's parent held a post in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive.

"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the content he shared.

"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.

"This error had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."

The film was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.

A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."