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The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.

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

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

Ofcom has instructed the BBC to air a prime-time statement about its findings.

"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the BBC to air a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.

'Potential to Erode Trust'

The regulator's statement declared: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent held a post in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.

"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he shared.

"Trust is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.

"This failing had the possibility to erode the very considerable degrees of credibility that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."

The film was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.

A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."