The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to air a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the corporation to transmit a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's statement said: "Our investigation determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to damage the significantly high amounts of confidence that viewers would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
