The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the corporation to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The watchdog's statement said: "Our probe determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the presenter and the information he shared.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the significantly high amounts of confidence that the public would have invested 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The film was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's family links came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
