The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has ordered the BBC to transmit a evening announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to air a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Trust'
The authority's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's parent held a post in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it breached the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
