The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has directed the BBC to air a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Undermine Confidence'
The watchdog's report said: "Our investigation found that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the potential to erode the significantly high amounts of trust that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it infringed the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."
