The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority 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 BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has ordered the corporation to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's report stated: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent held a position in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the possibility to damage the significantly high levels of confidence that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
