The BBC committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to air a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential 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 film was pulled from the online platform in February after the boy's family links came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it breached the corporation's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
