The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the corporation to air a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's parent held a post in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk to erode the very considerable levels of credibility that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the narrator's family links came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
