The BBC committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the BBC to transmit a prime-time statement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's report declared: "Our investigation found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent served in a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the information he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the significantly high degrees of credibility that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance 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 factual correctness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and language are finalised."
