The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has ordered the BBC to transmit a evening statement about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Potential to Undermine Trust'
The regulator's statement said: "Our investigation found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's father occupied a position in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a television network and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to erode the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
