The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to broadcast a evening statement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The watchdog's statement stated: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to erode the very considerable amounts of trust that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in July an internal BBC review found it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
