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The public service broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom.

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

The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".

Ofcom has instructed the BBC to transmit a peak-time statement about its conclusions.

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

'Possibility to Erode Credibility'

The authority's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent held a role in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.

"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the information he presented.

"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its public, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This oversight had the potential to undermine the significantly high amounts of trust that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."

The film was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the organization's content policies on factual correctness.

A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."