The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has directed the corporation to broadcast a evening announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the corporation to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The authority's statement declared: "Our probe concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's parent occupied a position in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he presented.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the potential to damage the very considerable levels of credibility that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
