The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to broadcast a evening statement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," the statement read.
'Potential to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to erode the exceptionally strong levels of trust that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
