The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has instructed the BBC to transmit a peak-time statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our probe concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the potential to erode the exceptionally strong amounts of credibility that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from the online platform in February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
