The public service broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The watchdog's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent served in a role in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the information he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review found it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
