The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to air a evening statement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the corporation to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The authority's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in last February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
