The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has ordered the corporation to transmit a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's report stated: "Our investigation determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's father held a post in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the content he presented.
"Trust is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to undermine the very considerable amounts of confidence that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the boy's family links came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
