The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the corporation to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Potential to Undermine Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement said: "Our investigation found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent served in a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a television network and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the significantly high levels of confidence that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and language are confirmed."
