The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the corporation to broadcast a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the corporation to transmit a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Confidence'
The regulator's report declared: "Our probe concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's father served in a role in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This failing had the potential to erode the significantly high amounts of credibility that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
