The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has directed the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to air a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The watchdog's report said: "Our probe found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the bond between a television network and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
