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The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

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

The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".

The authority has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time statement about its findings.

"As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to transmit a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.

'Possibility to Erode Trust'

The authority's report said: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent held a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.

"It meant that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the information he presented.

"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.

"This failing had the potential to undermine the very considerable degrees of trust that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."

The programme was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's family links emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.

A BBC spokesperson said: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 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 comply with the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."