The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to air a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's report declared: "Our investigation concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's father occupied a position in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
