The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to transmit a evening declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are directing the corporation to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's statement said: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
