The BBC committed a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to transmit a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's failure to disclose that the voice's father occupied a position in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to undermine the very considerable amounts of credibility that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the organization's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and language are finalised."
