The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to air a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's report stated: "Our investigation found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's father occupied a role in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to undermine the significantly high degrees of trust that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
