The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Trust'
The regulator's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's father held a position in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a television network and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the possibility to damage the significantly high amounts of confidence that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in July an internal BBC review found it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and wording are determined."
