The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to transmit a evening announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The regulator's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the potential to erode the very considerable levels of credibility that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's family links came to light, and in July an internal BBC review found it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
