The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog 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, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has instructed the corporation to transmit a peak-time declaration about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the BBC to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's announcement stated: "Our investigation found that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in last February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it violated the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
