The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to air a peak-time declaration about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The authority's report said: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the very considerable amounts of credibility that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's family links came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
