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The BBC committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.

An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".

The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".

Ofcom has directed the corporation to transmit a prime-time statement about its decisions.

"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.

'Possibility to Damage Trust'

The watchdog's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father held a post in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.

"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the presenter and the details he provided.

"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This error had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."

The film was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.

A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are determined."