Journalist who featured on BBC Arabic called for Jews to be ‘burned as Hitler did’ and boasted children slaughtered by ‘hero’ terrorists would ‘go to hell’ – as Beeb faces fresh antisemitism row

A journalist who featured on the BBC’s Arabic channel has called for Jews to be ‘burned as Hitler did’ in sickening social media posts.

Samer Elzaenen has appeared on the channel several times reporting on the conflict.

Last June he reported on the Nuseirat refugee camp, after an Israeli military operation to rescue four hostages held by Hamas, which led to hundreds of Palestinian deaths.

It has now been reported that the 33-year-old journalist has taken to social media to condemn Jews and even appear for them to be killed, according to the Telegraph.

It’s the latest in anti-Semitic links to the corporation, which has left the broadcaster under huge pressure.

In February, a Beeb documentary about Gaza was pulled from iPlayer after it was accused of spreading terrorist propaganda.

The programme aired on BBC Two and is narrated by 13-year-old Abdullah Al-Yazouri, who describes life in the city during the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

But, following an investigation, it later emerged the boy is the son of Ayman Alyazouri, Hamas’s deputy minister of agriculture.

In a sickening social media post, Mr Elzaenen’s social media, he said: ‘When things go awry for us, shoot the Jews, it fixes everything.’

In another rant, he seemed to call for a repeat of the Holocaust, saying that Palestinians would ‘take our land back’ and saying that ‘we love death for Allah’s sake in the same way you love life’.

He added: ‘We shall burn you as Hitler did, but this time we won’t have a single one of you left.’

In many posts, Mr Elzaenen has seemingly backed more than 30 separate attacks against Jewish civilians in Israel, calling the actions ‘blessed’ and ‘heroic’ whilst those behind the attacks are called ‘heroes’ and ‘martyrs’.

When referring to an attack in February 2023 in which a terrorist killed two children after ramming his car into a bus stop in Jerusalem, he said the victims would soon ‘go to hell’.

The current war in Gaza began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched a large-scale surprise attack on southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking over 200 hostages, including civilians.

It was the deadliest attack on Israel in its history.

Mr Elzaenen has repeatedly called those who carried out the attack ‘resistance fighters’.

Meanwhile, another freelance journalist who contributes to the regional channel, Ahmed Qannan, appeared to endorse violence against Israelis in a social media post related to a deadly attack near a synagogue in Jerusalem.

The shooting, which occurred on Holocaust Memorial Day in January 2023, left seven civilians dead.

In response to a Facebook comment from a friend saying, ‘We want to see some throats cut,’ Qannan replied, ‘Don’t give up on your ambition,’ seemingly encouraging the sentiment.

Sources have told the newspaper that neither journalists were members of staff at the broadcaster.

A BBC spokesperson told the newspaper the organisation cannot access Gaza directly due to restrictions on international media, so it relies on a range of eyewitness reports from within the area.

It said these contributors are not BBC employees or part of its official reporting team.

The spokesperson added that the BBC was not aware of the individuals’ social media activity before airing their accounts and emphasised that the broadcaster has zero tolerance for antisemitism on its platforms.

The BBC was approached for comment.