The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has directed the BBC to air a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the corporation to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The authority's statement stated: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to erode the significantly high levels of trust that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's family links emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
