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The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

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

The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".

Ofcom has ordered the BBC to transmit a evening declaration about its decisions.

"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," it said.

'Potential to Erode Credibility'

The watchdog's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent served in a position in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.

"It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the details he presented.

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

"This failing had the possibility to erode the very considerable levels of credibility that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."

The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.

A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme 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 its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and language are finalised."