The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to air a peak-time statement about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the corporation to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our probe found that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's parent occupied a position in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a television network and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
