The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has directed the BBC to transmit a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The regulator's report stated: "Our probe found that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent served in a role in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
