The BBC committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the corporation to transmit a evening statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to damage the exceptionally strong levels of trust that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
