The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to transmit a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to transmit a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The authority's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent served in a position in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the very considerable amounts of trust that viewers would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and wording are determined."
