The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The authority's announcement stated: "Our investigation determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's father held a position in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the risk to damage the very considerable levels of confidence that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the boy's family links came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
