The BBC engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Trust'
The authority's statement stated: "Our probe concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent served in a post in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to erode the significantly high levels of confidence that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
