The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has ordered the BBC to transmit a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The regulator's statement said: "Our investigation found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
