The BBC committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Damage Credibility'
The watchdog's announcement declared: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk to damage the very considerable amounts of credibility that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's family links emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
