The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the corporation to air a evening declaration about its decisions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the BBC to transmit a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The authority's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent held a position in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the presenter and the details he shared.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the possibility to erode the very considerable levels of confidence that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
