The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to transmit a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the BBC to air a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's father held a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong levels of trust that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and language are determined."
