The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has directed the corporation to transmit a evening statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's announcement declared: "Our probe found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the voice's parent served in a position in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to erode the exceptionally strong amounts of credibility that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The film was removed from the online platform in February after the boy's family links came to light, and in July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and language are determined."
