The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has instructed the corporation to broadcast a evening declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the BBC to air a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The authority's statement stated: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk to damage the significantly high amounts of credibility that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review found it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
