The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the corporation to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The regulator's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's parent held a post in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to damage the significantly high degrees of credibility that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's family links emerged, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
