The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the corporation to transmit a evening statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The regulator's statement declared: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to damage the significantly high amounts of confidence that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from the online platform in last February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
