The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has directed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The authority's report said: "Our investigation determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent served in a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the very considerable levels of credibility that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The authority's determination is in line with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
