The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a significant violation of our code, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The watchdog's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the possibility to erode the significantly high degrees of trust that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in July an internal BBC review determined it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines 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 authority's determination in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
