The BBC committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to air a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The watchdog's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent served in a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to erode the significantly high levels of credibility that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
