The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Potential to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our probe found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the potential to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was removed from iPlayer in February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are determined."
