The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the corporation to transmit a peak-time declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's announcement declared: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's father occupied a role in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and language are finalised."
