The BBC committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to broadcast a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The regulator's statement said: "Our investigation determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the details he shared.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a television network and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to erode the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
