The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our investigation found that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's father occupied a position in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the details he presented.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the significantly high degrees of trust that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from the online platform in February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in July an internal BBC review found it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 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 sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
