The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has directed the corporation to transmit a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's statement stated: "Our probe concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a television network and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the very considerable amounts of confidence that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's family links emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
