The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to air a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our probe found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the potential to undermine the very considerable levels of confidence that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
