The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The regulator's announcement said: "Our probe determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's parent occupied a post in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to damage the significantly high levels of credibility that viewers would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
