The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The authority's report declared: "Our probe found that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a television network and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the significantly high levels of trust that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and language are finalised."
