The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has ordered the corporation to transmit a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are directing the BBC to transmit a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's report declared: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the information he shared.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a television network and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the very considerable degrees of credibility that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in last February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."
