The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to air a prime-time announcement about its decisions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the BBC to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The regulator's announcement declared: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the information he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the very considerable levels of confidence that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was pulled from iPlayer in February after the narrator's family links came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
