The BBC committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to air a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The authority's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to erode the significantly high levels of confidence that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and wording are determined."
