The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has directed the corporation to transmit a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's father served in a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's family links came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
