The BBC engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to air a peak-time statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to damage the very considerable degrees of trust that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
