The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The authority's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's father served in a post in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the content he shared.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the organization's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
