The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to air a peak-time declaration about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's report stated: "Our probe concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father held a post in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the connection between a television network and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the very considerable degrees of credibility that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."
