The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," it said.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The authority's announcement said: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the very considerable levels of credibility that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's family links emerged, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
