The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the BBC to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's statement stated: "Our probe determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and language are confirmed."
