The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the BBC to transmit a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are directing the corporation to air a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Confidence'
The authority's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the potential to erode the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in July an internal BBC review found it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."
