The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the BBC to air a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to air a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The regulator's report said: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the details he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to undermine the significantly high levels of confidence that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
