The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the corporation to transmit a prime-time statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's statement declared: "Our probe determined that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent occupied a position in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the bond between a television network and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
