The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to air a evening declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to air a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's statement stated: "Our probe concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's father occupied a position in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the presenter and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to erode the very considerable degrees of trust that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was removed from the online platform in last February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
