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The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.

An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".

The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".

The regulator has instructed the corporation to transmit a evening statement about its findings.

"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.

'Potential to Erode Trust'

The regulator's report said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.

"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the content he provided.

"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This error had the potential to erode the significantly high levels of trust that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."

The film was removed from the online platform in February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.

A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."