The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a evening announcement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to air a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The authority's announcement declared: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to erode the very considerable levels of credibility that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
