The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Possibility to Damage Trust'
The regulator's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's parent served in a role in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the content he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to damage the significantly high degrees of trust that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the corporation's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
