The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a evening declaration about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's report said: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he presented.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the potential to undermine the significantly high amounts of credibility that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from the online platform in February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret 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 finalised."
