The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to air a prime-time statement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The authority's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to erode the significantly high amounts of confidence that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
