The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a evening declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Potential to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's parent occupied a position in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the content he shared.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and wording are determined."
