The BBC committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to broadcast a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Credibility'
The regulator's statement declared: "Our probe determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in last February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions 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 regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and language are determined."
