The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to air a peak-time declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's announcement stated: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to damage the very considerable degrees of confidence that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing 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 accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
