The BBC engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a evening announcement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's announcement said: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's parent served in a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the very considerable degrees of confidence that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and language are determined."
