The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to air a evening statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The regulator's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the potential to undermine the significantly high levels of trust that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it breached the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."
