The BBC committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the corporation to air a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The regulator's report said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a television network and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to damage the significantly high levels of trust that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
