The BBC committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The authority has directed the BBC to air a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The authority's announcement stated: "Our investigation determined that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a television network and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the significantly high degrees of credibility that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
