The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the corporation to transmit a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The authority's announcement declared: "Our probe determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the content he shared.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the very considerable degrees of credibility that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
