The BBC committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the corporation to broadcast a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Confidence'
The authority's statement declared: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent held a position in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the information he presented.
"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of trust that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was removed from iPlayer in last February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it breached the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the findings 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 aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
