The BBC engaged in a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to air a evening declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Trust'
The regulator's announcement said: "Our probe determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the content he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and wording are determined."
