The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the corporation to broadcast a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are directing the corporation to transmit a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The watchdog's report stated: "Our probe found that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's father occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its audience, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of trust that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it violated the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and language are finalised."
