The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a evening declaration about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The regulator's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's parent held a post in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a television network and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
