The BBC committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Potential to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's announcement declared: "Our investigation found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to erode the very considerable levels of credibility that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A corporation official said: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
