The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the corporation to broadcast a prime-time statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the corporation to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's statement stated: "Our probe found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent served in a role in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the possibility to erode the very considerable amounts of credibility that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the boy's family links emerged, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance 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 reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
