The BBC committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to transmit a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to air a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Credibility'
The authority's statement declared: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the potential to undermine the very considerable levels of trust that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's family links came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the organization's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
