The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," it said.
'Potential to Undermine Trust'
The regulator's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's father held a post in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the details he presented.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the significantly high amounts of trust that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary 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 determined."
