The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to transmit a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The authority's report said: "Our investigation found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent held a post in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
