The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the corporation to air a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father held a position in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he shared.
"Credibility is at the center of the bond between a television network and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the significantly high levels of confidence that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in last February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and language are confirmed."
