The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to broadcast a evening statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The watchdog's statement declared: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's father occupied a role in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the details he presented.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's family links emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
