The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the corporation to transmit a peak-time statement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The watchdog's report declared: "Our investigation determined that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's parent held a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the significantly high levels of confidence that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
