The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has directed the BBC to air a peak-time statement about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's father occupied a position in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the possibility to erode the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that audiences would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
