The BBC committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to broadcast a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to air a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The watchdog's report declared: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent occupied a position in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the presenter and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a television network and its audience, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to damage the significantly high amounts of credibility that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
