The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The watchdog's statement stated: "Our investigation determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's father occupied a position in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the details he presented.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the very considerable degrees of trust that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was removed from the online platform in February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
