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The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom.

An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".

The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".

The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to air a prime-time declaration about its decisions.

"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.

'Potential to Undermine Credibility'

The watchdog's announcement said: "Our probe found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father occupied a position in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.

"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he shared.

"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.

"This failing had the risk to undermine the very considerable amounts of credibility that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."

The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the organization's content policies on factual correctness.

A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error 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 issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised."