The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the corporation to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The authority's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to damage the significantly high levels of confidence that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it violated the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and wording are determined."