The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to air a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's report said: "Our probe determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk to erode the significantly high amounts of credibility that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from the online platform in last February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
