The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has ordered the BBC to transmit a evening announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent held a role in the Hamas-administered administration 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 content he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to erode the very considerable amounts of credibility that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions 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 aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
