The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the BBC to air a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's father served in a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the connection between a television network and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to erode the significantly high levels of confidence that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from the online platform in last February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in July an internal BBC review determined it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
