The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time statement about its findings.
"As this represents a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to air a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father occupied a position in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the significantly high levels of confidence that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was removed from the online platform in February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
