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The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

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

The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".

The authority has ordered the BBC to transmit a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.

"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," it said.

'Possibility to Damage Confidence'

The regulator's announcement declared: "Our investigation found that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.

"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he presented.

"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.

"This error had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."

The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.

A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

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