The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded 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 factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the BBC to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Damage Credibility'
The watchdog's statement declared: "Our probe concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's father served in a role in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the potential to undermine the very considerable amounts of trust that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
