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The BBC committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.

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

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

Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time declaration about its findings.

"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to air a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.

'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'

The authority's announcement declared: "Our investigation found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.

"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the content he presented.

"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.

"This error had the potential to erode the very considerable degrees of credibility that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."

The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in July an internal BBC review found it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.

A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and wording are finalised."