The BBC committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the corporation to air a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to air a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The regulator's announcement stated: "Our investigation concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's family links came to light, and in July an internal BBC review found it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and language are confirmed."
