The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to air a evening declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to transmit a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The authority's announcement said: "Our investigation determined that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
