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The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.

An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "materially misleading".

The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".

The authority has directed the corporation to broadcast a peak-time statement about its decisions.

"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the BBC to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.

'Risk to Damage Confidence'

The watchdog's report said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.

"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he provided.

"Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This failing had the potential to erode the very considerable degrees of credibility that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."

The film was removed from the online platform in last February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the organization's content policies on accuracy.

A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."