The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to broadcast a evening declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement declared: "Our investigation found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement 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 truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
