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The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.

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

The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".

The regulator has instructed the corporation to transmit a evening statement about its conclusions.

"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.

'Potential to Erode Credibility'

The regulator's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.

"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the information he presented.

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

"This failing had the risk to damage the significantly high degrees of trust that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."

The documentary was removed from iPlayer in last February after the boy's family links came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.

A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are determined."