The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The regulator's report said: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
