The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the BBC to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The authority's report said: "Our probe found that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's father occupied a position in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the possibility to damage the significantly high levels of trust that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review found it violated the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
