A 'journalist' from Gaza who works for the BBC called to 'burn Jews like Hitler.'

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.

In response, the BBC stated that neither Elzaenen nor Qannan are employees of the outlet, and that their testimonies are only used as "on-the-ground sources" because their own journalists can't enter Gaza in the current context of war.

The network added that it was unaware of both contributors' social media history before broadcasting their reports, and reaffirmed that "there is no place for antisemitism in its services."

The BBC was already under intense scrutiny for its coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which has been described by many as biased against Israel.

In February 2025, the broadcaster was forced to apologize after it was discovered that a documentary titled "Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone" was narrated by the son of Hamas's former deputy minister of agriculture.

In response, the BBC's chairman, Samir Shah, described the incident as an affront to the corporation's impartiality and promised that corrective measures would be taken. A meeting was even held with the United Kingdom's Secretary of Culture, Lisa Nandy, who assured that "no stone will be left unturned" in the investigation.

The BBC has also been criticized for refusing to label Hamas as a terrorist group, even though its armed wing is proscribed as such in the United Kingdom. The corporation has defended this stance by arguing that it avoids using emotionally charged terms to maintain its commitment to journalistic objectivity.