The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to air a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Credibility'
The authority's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent served in a post in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to damage the very considerable degrees of confidence that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and language are finalised."
