The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The regulator's announcement declared: "Our investigation found that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the possibility to damage the very considerable levels of confidence that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's family links emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it infringed the organization's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
