An investigation published by The Telegraph revealed a series of deeply antisemitic social media posts attributed to Samer Elzaenen, a 33-year-old Gazan journalist who has regularly collaborated with BBC Arabic since the start of the war in Gaza following the attacks on October 7, 2023.
These posts, dating back to 2011, include explicit calls for violence against Jews and expressions of admiration for terrorist acts committed against Israeli civilians.
In a 2011 Facebook post, Elzaenen wrote: "My message to Zionist Jews: We will take back our land, we love death for Allah as you love life. We will burn you as Hitler did, but this time not a single one of you will remain." More than a decade later, in 2022, he posted: "When things go badly for us, shooting Jews fixes everything."
According to the report, Elzaenen has praised more than 30 terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians. One of the cases mentioned was the February 2023 attack in Jerusalem, in which two minors and a 20-year-old young man were killed; Elzaenen referred to them by saying that "they will soon go to hell."
After the October 7, 2023 attacks, in which approximately 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed, and 251 were taken hostage by Hamas, Elzaenen praised the strikers, whom he called "resistance fighters." Despite these statements, he appeared more than a dozen times in BBC Arabic reports since the start of the war.
In addition to Elzaenen, the report also mentions Ahmed Qannan, another freelance journalist who collaborated with BBC Arabic. In a social media post, Qannan praised the perpetrator of the March 2022 attack in Bnei Brak, where five people were killed, describing him as a "hero."
Both journalists were identified by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), an organization that monitors bias in Middle East coverage.
