The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The regulator's announcement said: "Our probe found that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father held a post in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the details he presented.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the very considerable amounts of credibility that audiences would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and language are determined."
