The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The regulator's statement said: "Our probe found that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's father served in a post in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the content he shared.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to damage the significantly high amounts of trust that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's family links emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
