The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child 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 concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the corporation to air a evening declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's report declared: "Our investigation found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the details he presented.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the very considerable levels of trust that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in last February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
