The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time statement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's report declared: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father occupied a position in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the very considerable levels of credibility that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in line 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 accuracy, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
