(Oct. 12, 2026 / JNS)
The Campaign Against Antisemitism, a prominent watchdog group in the United Kingdom, has identified five healthcare professionals whose public statements it considers antisemitic or anti-Israel, according to a Daily Mail report published on Saturday.
The five individuals, whom the newspaper identified as current or former National Health Service employees, included midwife Fatimah Mohamied, who allegedly endorsed a post supporting Palestinian “resistance” on Oct. 7, 2023.
The Daily Mail reported that physician Dr. Abdelaal Ragheb Elfarra claimed Zionists control the media and the world; psychiatrist Dr. Ahmed Sewehli said regarding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “you need to be dead”; and emergency physician Dr. Nadeem Crowe described Israel as a “terrorist octopus.” Occupational therapist Zaida Akhtar allegedly shared a video appearing to encourage violence against Netanyahu’s son and a “false flag” claim about the Bondi Beach attack in Australia last year, the newspaper reported.
Separately, The Telegraph reported Saturday that BBC Arabic journalist Layla Bashar al-Kloub described Ahmad Jarrar and Omar Abu Leila as “martyrs” in social media posts in 2018 and 2019. Both had murdered Israeli civilians, according to the newspaper.
The allegations concerning the medical professionals follow a review published in June by John Mann, the British government’s independent adviser on antisemitism, which found “routine ostracism” of Jewish staff and patients within the NHS.
Jewish community representatives have warned that antisemitism in healthcare can affect patients at moments of particular vulnerability.
Karen Newman, a vice president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, described that concern during parliamentary testimony on May 14. She spoke about Jewish patients hesitating to request kosher meals after seeing a Palestinian badge on a nurse’s uniform.
“That is not a moment when you feel good asking for kosher meals,” she said.
Stephen Silverman, a Campaign Against Antisemitism representative, said in September: “The NHS touches us all at times in our life when we are the most vulnerable.” He warned that Jewish patients were concealing their identity for fear of unequal treatment or abuse when they most needed health care.
According to the Daily Mail, Elfarra said during a protest speech in a video dated April 1, 2025: “Zionists control the media. Zionists control the world.”
The newspaper also quoted him as saying: “We are the Nakba survivor. Is that similar to the Holocaust survivor? Yes,” and, “What Israel is doing in Gaza is not ethnic cleansing. It’s extermination.”
The Daily Mail reported that Elfarra posted a caricature in October 2023 showing Netanyahu wearing a bloodied apron and holding a knife over a sleeping child in a hospital bed.
In July 2024, he allegedly shared text describing the Rothschild family as the “wealthiest and influential family, believed to control all the world’s money.” The following month, he wrote, “Elon Musk is controlled by Zionists,” according to the newspaper.
The Daily Mail reported that Mohamied responded “Hell yeah” to a post asserting that “Palestinians have a right to resist their occupation” on Oct. 7, 2023, as Hamas terrorists were murdering civilians in Israel.
The newspaper also said it had seen a now-deleted January 2025 blog post in which Mohamied wrote: “The problem lies in using Jewish cultural safety as a smokescreen to propagate colonialism, occupation, apartheid, and genocide as somehow acceptable.”
“The problem here are the Zionist speakers you hold no qualm or shame to platform,” she added, according to the report.
Akhtar, who also uses the name Zee Zidane, allegedly shared a video appearing to encourage violence against Netanyahu’s son Avner, whom the newspaper described as having purchased a flat in Oxford while studying there.
“If you do see that face […] Roadman, you know what to do. Sort out this waste,” the Daily Mail quotes the video as saying. The newspaper reported that Akhtar also referred to Avner as the “son of the devil.”
According to the report, Akhtar reposted material from former Irish MEP Mick Wallace depicting a U.S. delegate with devil horns and blood around her mouth performing a Nazi salute. Wallace’s accompanying text accused the United States of supporting the “Genocidal Zionist Settler Colonial Project in Palestine,” the newspaper reported.
Sewehli, a Manchester-based psychiatrist, replied to a Netanyahu post with the words, “You need to be dead,” according to the Daily Mail.
The newspaper reported that Crowe, a British-Jordanian physician, wrote in July 2025 that there was “no doubt” Israel was “a terrorist octopus with its head in Israel and tentacles far reaching into every continent.”
Crowe was suspended mid-shift from the Royal Free Hospital in August 2024 following a colleague’s complaint about his social media activity, according to the report. He is awaiting the outcome of an employment tribunal claim alleging discrimination and harassment by the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust and its responsible officer, Dr. Jane Hawdon, the newspaper said.
Crowe and Mohamied declined to comment to the Daily Mail. The newspaper reported that Mohamied denied wrongdoing and Crowe denied supporting Hamas. Both have brought claims against their former employers, according to the report.
The Daily Mail article included no responses from Akhtar, Elfarra or Sewehli.
Sewehli did not respond by publication time to a JNS request for comment. Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust did not respond by press time to a JNS query about Akhtar’s reported affiliation with the organization.
Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, where the Daily Mail identified Elfarra as working, told the newspaper that it investigates all allegations of inappropriate staff conduct. Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust declined to comment on Crowe’s ongoing legal case, the newspaper reported.
In its separate report, The Telegraph said al-Kloub had described Israel’s Jewish population as “terrorists” and, in 2021, asked Allah to “strengthen” Muna Hawwa, a Palestinian presenter at Al Jazeera.
According to The Telegraph, Hawwa had been disciplined by the broadcaster over a video questioning the Holocaust and asking how Zionists benefited from it. Hawwa has denied Holocaust denial, the newspaper reported.
Al-Kloub received a British Council award in April 2025 for her contribution to BBC Arabic’s Gaza coverage, according to The Telegraph.
A BBC spokesman told the newspaper: “We have made it clear that we take allegations of breaches of our social media guidance very seriously and we took urgent action to investigate.”
“We do not comment on individual staff,” the spokesman added.
The allegations add to scrutiny of the BBC’s coverage of Israel. Last year, the broadcaster acknowledged “serious failings” in the production of a Gaza documentary, as JNS reported.
An analysis released in 2024 alleged that the BBC breached its editorial guidelines more than 1,500 times during a four-month period after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre, including by downplaying Hamas terrorism and presenting Israel as the aggressor, according to JNS.