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The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

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

The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".

The authority has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a evening announcement about its conclusions.

"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.

'Potential to Undermine Confidence'

The authority's announcement stated: "Our probe found that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive.

"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he provided.

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

"This error had the risk to undermine the very considerable levels of trust that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."

The documentary was removed from the online platform in last February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the corporation's content policies on accuracy.

A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised."