The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The authority has ordered the broadcaster to air a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to air a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The watchdog's report declared: "Our investigation found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's father held a role in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the presenter and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to erode the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from the online platform in last February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
