The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the corporation to air a evening announcement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The authority's announcement said: "Our probe found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the potential to erode the very considerable degrees of trust that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in July an internal BBC review found it violated the corporation's journalistic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 factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
