The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a evening statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The authority's report declared: "Our probe determined that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's parent occupied a position in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to erode the significantly high amounts of credibility that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
