The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to air a evening declaration about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The regulator's announcement declared: "Our investigation found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the possibility to damage the significantly high levels of credibility that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
