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The BBC committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, according to regulatory body Ofcom.

An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".

The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".

The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a evening announcement about its findings.

"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," it said.

'Potential to Damage Credibility'

The watchdog's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent served in a role in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.

"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he provided.

"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.

"This failing had the risk to undermine the very considerable degrees of trust that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."

The programme was pulled from iPlayer in February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.

A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."