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The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.

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

The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".

The regulator has directed the broadcaster to transmit a evening announcement about its findings.

"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to transmit a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the statement read.

'Potential to Erode Trust'

The regulator's report said: "Our investigation concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent served in a role in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.

"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the information he presented.

"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.

"This failing had the potential to erode the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."

The film was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.

A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."