The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the corporation to transmit a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it violated the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
