The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has directed the BBC to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's statement stated: "Our investigation found that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent occupied a position in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
