The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to air a evening declaration about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the BBC to air a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Potential to Erode Credibility'
The regulator's announcement said: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's father served in a post in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts 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 television network and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to erode the very considerable amounts of credibility that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the boy's family links emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and language are confirmed."
