The BBC committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to transmit a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," the statement read.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The regulator's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the details he presented.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the significantly high degrees of credibility that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from the online platform in last February after the boy's family links came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
