The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has instructed the corporation to transmit a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement declared: "Our investigation found that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This failing had the potential to damage the very considerable amounts of confidence that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in last February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
