The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to air a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Potential to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our investigation found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent held a post in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to erode the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from the online platform in February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and language are determined."
