The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the BBC to broadcast a prime-time statement about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The authority's report stated: "Our probe found that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent served in a role in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.
"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he presented.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to undermine the very considerable degrees of trust that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."
