The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the corporation to air a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's report said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the presenter and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the significantly high degrees of credibility that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled 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 infringed the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
