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The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.

An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".

The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".

Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time statement about its findings.

"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the corporation to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.

'Risk to Undermine Confidence'

The watchdog's announcement said: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.

"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the presenter and the details he provided.

"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."

The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.

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 corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

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