The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to air a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The watchdog's report declared: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
