The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to air a peak-time declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to air a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's announcement said: "Our investigation found that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and language are finalised."
