The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the BBC to air a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the information he presented.
"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was removed from the online platform in February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it breached the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
