The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the corporation to broadcast a evening announcement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the statement read.
'Potential to Undermine Confidence'
The watchdog's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
