The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the corporation to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent held a post in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk to undermine the very considerable amounts of trust that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's family links came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
