The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to air a peak-time declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to erode the very considerable levels of confidence that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from the online platform in February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
