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The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.

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

The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".

The regulator has ordered the BBC to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.

"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to air a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," it said.

'Risk to Damage Trust'

The regulator's report said: "Our probe concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's father held a position in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.

"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he presented.

"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.

"This error had the possibility to erode the significantly high levels of trust that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."

The programme was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.

A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."