The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has directed the broadcaster to air a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," the statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's statement stated: "Our probe concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's father held a position in the Hamas-administered authority 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 information he presented.
"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the significantly high levels of confidence that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
