The BBC committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to transmit a peak-time declaration about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's statement stated: "Our probe found that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's father occupied a position in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to undermine the significantly high degrees of trust that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in July an internal BBC review found it breached the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision 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 accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
