The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a evening announcement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Trust'
The authority's announcement stated: "Our probe found that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to erode the significantly high degrees of credibility that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
