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The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.

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

The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".

The regulator has directed the BBC to transmit a prime-time statement about its findings.

"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," the statement read.

'Potential to Damage Trust'

The watchdog's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.

"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the details he provided.

"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a television network and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.

"This error had the risk to undermine the significantly high amounts of trust that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."

The film was removed from iPlayer in February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.

A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

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