The BBC committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to air a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's announcement stated: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the details he presented.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to damage the very considerable levels of confidence that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from iPlayer in February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
