‘We’ll burn Jews like Hitler did,’ says BBC Gaza contributor
A freelance journalist frequently featured on BBC Arabic has called for Jews to be burned “as Hitler did” and praised terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians, according to an exposé published in The Telegraph on Saturday.
Samer Elzaenen, 33, has reported live for BBC Arabic more than a dozen times since the Israel-Hamas began on Oct. 7, 2023. His coverage included dispatches from the Nuseirat refugee camp after an Israeli rescue operation in June 2024.
However, social media posts show Elzaenen has long expressed violent antisemitic views. In a Facebook post from 2011, he wrote to “Zionist Jews:” “We shall burn you as Hitler did, but this time we won’t have a single one of you left.” In 2022, he posted: “When things go awry for us, shoot the Jews, it fixes everything.”
Elzaenen has endorsed more than 30 attacks against Jewish civilians in Israel over the past decade, often celebrating the deaths. After a 2023 Jerusalem attack that killed two young boys and a 20-year-old man, he commented that the victims “will soon go to hell.” He has also referred to Hamas gunmen who massacred concertgoers at the Nova festival as “resistance fighters.”
Another freelance contributor, Ahmed Qannan, who has also appeared on BBC Arabic, praised Palestinian terrorists and expressed hope that wounded Israeli civilians would die.
The BBC emphasised that neither Elzaenen nor Qannan is an employee, but watchdog groups criticised the corporation’s reliance on freelancers with documented hatred toward Jews.
“Freelancers who support violence against Jewish civilians should not be covering Israeli affairs for the BBC,” said CAMERA UK, a media monitoring group.
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has called for “wholesale reform” of BBC Arabic, warning it risks fomenting extremism while funded by British taxpayers.
A BBC spokesman responded, saying: “We hear from a range of eyewitnesses from Gaza. These are not BBC staff. We were not aware of their social media activity before hearing from them on air. There is no place for antisemitism on our services.”
Both Elzaenen and Qannan were approached for comment but have not responded.
The revelations come amid growing scrutiny of BBC Arabic’s coverage and allegations of systemic anti-Israel bias within the service.
JNS
