The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has directed the BBC to broadcast a evening announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Credibility'
The regulator's announcement said: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's parent occupied a position in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to damage the significantly high amounts of confidence that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's family links came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the timing and language are determined."
