Another BBC Arabic report posted on YouTube to some 13 million subscribers features similar responses, including users laughing: “Hahaha. The Semites.”
Comments on Facebook underneath a BBC Arabic report about the Hatzola attack[Missing Credit]
Likewise, one X, one comment stated: “Every crisis that Europeans and the world go through is caused by the Jews. They must not live on this planet. They must be eradicated.”
And on Facebook, where the channel has 18 million followers, dozens of users made light of the attack and suggested it was staged.
“Glory be to God. Every time the same drama. The production, production, everything is from them,” said one comment.
Another account, featuring an image of the slain Ayatollah Ali Khamanei as its profile picture, wrote of the attack: “Suitable and needs no investigation.”
Other comments included remarks such as “if the whole world hate them will they judge the world. They need to accept that fact” and “this is a stunt by the British intelligence MI6, tricks to find justification enough to intervene in the war and scare the British people into their sympathy”.
Others called the attack “sublime” and said of the Jewish community that “everyone hates them”.
The JC also found antisemitic comments on the BBC’s English-language videos about the attack.
On a video posted by BBC News to some 19.5 million subscribers, comments blamed the Mossad for the attack and made jokes about it.
“Mossad will do everything to drag UK into Iran war,” said one, which attracted 35 likes. Another joked: “The ambulance was 3 weeks away from developing nukes!”
And another said: “That ambulance was promised 3000 years ago and now it’s burned.”
A fourth user wrote: “Antisemitic hate crime my azz, false flag”, while another posted: “Israel just announced that European capitals are within the Iranian missile range. Europe should get ready for false flag operations.”
“Busy night for Mossad with a box of matches,” said another.
Meanwhile, last month, a video posted to the BBC Arabic YouTube channel about the death of Dana Eden, the Israeli producer of the television series Tehran, drew comments such as “go to hell” and “we ask Allah not to keep any of them”.
Others wrote “this is the punishment for anyone who insults Muslims and Islam” and described Eden’s death as “anger from God Almighty”.
Other comments said “Death of every Israeli on earth” and “may God have no mercy on her”.
The slew of hateful comments came despite the BBC telling the JC it would moderate comments following earlier reporting on the volume of abusive posts under Holocaust Memorial Day content from 2025 and 2022.
Comments calling the Holocaust a “lie” and claiming “the Holocaust of Jews with Palestinians equals ten times more holocaust. The Nazis are with the Jews”, as well as “the turn of the Zionists will come”, remain visible.
The BBC has said on five separate occasions that its Arabic service “faces issues in comment moderation on social media sites”.
The continued presence of the hateful comments has prompted media watchdog Camera (the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis) to criticise what it says is a systemic failure of moderation
“The persistence of these problems suggests not isolated lapses, but a structural failure to draw meaningful lessons,” a Camera spokesperson said.
“One such lesson is clear: certain subjects are not suited to open comment in every context, and in such cases, disabling replies in advance is the more responsible course.
“A service that is genuinely committed to the BBC World Service’s stated principles—promoting tolerance, democratic values, and informed public discourse—would also be willing to publicly confront a more difficult question: why do phenomena such as Holocaust denial, support for violence against civilians, and antisemitic rhetoric appear so frequently in parts of Arabic-language online discourse? As it stands, BBC Arabic remains some distance from engaging in that level of critical self-examination of its own audience.”
A BBC spokesperson said: “These comments are abhorrent. As with many other media organisations, we face issues with comment moderation on social media sites.
"We go further than many publishers in utilising comprehensive comment filtering and moderation, making full use of tools available on social platforms in addition to deploying human moderation to remove offensive comments; particularly those with hate speech and featuring personal attacks. We are taking action to remove the offensive comments in the instances referenced."
