The most senior news executive at the BBC watched its controversial Gaza documentary before it was broadcast but failed to question it, The Telegraph can disclose.

Deborah Turness, the chief executive of BBC news and current affairs, was a guest at a special BBC screening held almost three weeks prior to the airing of Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone.

The documentary has now been removed from iPlayer after it emerged the boy narrating the programme was the son of a senior Hamas official.

The BBC has since identified “serious flaws in the making of the programme”, including its own failure to uncover the connection as well as payments made to the Hamas official’s family.

A BBC source said Ms Turness, who earns more than £410,000 a year, assumed the programme was fully compliant with BBC guidelines when she watched it at a preview screening.

The source said she did not question any elements of the programme because it was being shown as the finished product.

The admission will inevitably prompt concern about the role Ms Turness – who launched the BBC Verify fact-checking service two years ago – played in the fiasco.