The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to air a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk to damage the very considerable degrees of credibility that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings 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 accept the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
