The BBC committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has directed the BBC to air a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's report stated: "Our investigation determined that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a television network and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to erode the significantly high degrees of credibility that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
