The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the son 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 determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has ordered the corporation to broadcast a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to air a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The authority's report declared: "Our probe determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to damage the very considerable degrees of confidence that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the corporation's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and wording are determined."
