The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the corporation to broadcast a peak-time statement about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
