The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son 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 documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has directed the BBC to broadcast a evening announcement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the BBC to air a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's report said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's father held a role in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to undermine the very considerable degrees of confidence that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are determined."
