The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the corporation to transmit a evening statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The watchdog's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent served in a role in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
