The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the broadcaster to air a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Damage Confidence'
The authority's statement declared: "Our probe determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a television network and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to undermine the very considerable degrees of trust that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from the online platform in February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
