The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has directed the corporation to air a evening announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The authority's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the content he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the potential to undermine the significantly high amounts of credibility that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from the online platform in February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
