The BBC committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has ordered the corporation to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that viewers would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the corporation's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
