The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the corporation to air a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's report stated: "Our investigation concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's parent served in a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and language are finalised."
