The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The watchdog's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's father served in a position in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the presenter and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a television network and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the corporation's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
