The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's announcement stated: "Our probe determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's parent served in a role in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers 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 heart of the connection between a television network and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the very considerable amounts of trust that viewers would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the corporation's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and language are confirmed."
