The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to transmit a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the BBC to air a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Damage Credibility'
The authority's report stated: "Our investigation determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's parent served in a position in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to erode the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in February after the narrator's family links came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
