The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a evening declaration about its findings.
"As this represents a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Credibility'
The authority's report said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent served in a post in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to damage the very considerable degrees of credibility that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from the online platform in last February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
