The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the corporation to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to air a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The authority's statement stated: "Our investigation found that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's parent served in a position in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he presented.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the significantly high degrees of confidence that viewers would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
