The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time statement about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to air a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's report declared: "Our investigation determined that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's father served in a role in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"It meant that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the information he presented.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was removed from iPlayer in last February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
