The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are directing the BBC to air a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's report declared: "Our probe found that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's father occupied a role in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to damage the significantly high degrees of trust that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from the online platform in last February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it breached the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
