The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to air a peak-time declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering 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.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The regulator's statement said: "Our investigation found that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a television network and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the possibility to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
