The BBC committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to air a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's father served in a role in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the details he presented.
"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to damage the significantly high amounts of trust that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
