The BBC committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority 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 BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to air a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The authority's statement said: "Our investigation concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father held a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its public, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the possibility to erode the significantly high amounts of trust that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
