The BBC committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to air a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's report said: "Our probe concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's father served in a position in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to erode the significantly high levels of trust that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and wording are determined."
