The BBC committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's report stated: "Our investigation concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's parent occupied a post in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its public, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and language are finalised."
