The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has instructed the BBC to transmit a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Trust'
The watchdog's report declared: "Our probe concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's father occupied a position in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the significantly high levels of confidence that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and language are determined."
