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The BBC committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

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

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

Ofcom has directed the corporation to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.

"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.

'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'

The watchdog's report stated: "Our probe concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's father served in a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.

"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the details he shared.

"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.

"This failing had the possibility to undermine the very considerable degrees of trust that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."

The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it breached the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy.

A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."