The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to air a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's report declared: "Our investigation determined that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's father served in a post in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the risk to erode the significantly high degrees of credibility that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from the online platform in last February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
