The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to air a evening declaration about its conclusions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Confidence'
The authority's statement declared: "Our probe concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's parent served in a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public 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 audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
