The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded 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".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to air a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our probe determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's father occupied a position in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he presented.
"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to damage the significantly high degrees of confidence that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's family links emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
