The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the corporation to air a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The regulator's statement declared: "Our investigation found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent held a position in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to undermine the very considerable degrees of credibility that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
