The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has directed the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the BBC to air a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The authority's report said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's father held a role in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of credibility that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and language are confirmed."
