The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to transmit a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the presenter and the details he shared.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."
