The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to transmit a peak-time declaration about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Potential to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the details he shared.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to undermine the significantly high degrees of confidence that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
