The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's parent served in a position in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he presented.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the possibility to erode the very considerable levels of credibility that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in last February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
