Following fierce backlash ignited by viral video footage, officials from London Stansted Airport announced Monday that they had launched an investigation into an incident that occurred Saturday in which an airport employee appeared to verbally abuse Israeli travelers.

According to local media, witnesses said that the woman, who is young and Black, screamed “Free Palestine” and other insults at travelers from Tel Aviv as they exited customs. When staffers told her to stop, she shouted, “F— off, bro; I work in this airport.” She then left the area.

Campaign Against Antisemitism, a British Jewish advocacy group, issued a blistering condemnation of the incident on social media alongside footage of the event and called for an investigation.

“This is appalling. Are people no longer free to travel without being accosted by so-called ‘activists’?” the group wrote. “Airport employees in London shouting ‘Free Palestine’ are doing nothing to bring peace to the Middle East.”

“Being at the airport should never mean having to put up with these attention-seeking stunts designed to cause alarm,” the group added. “We understand that this took place shortly after a flight from Tel Aviv had landed. London Stansted Airport must look into this at once.”

After news of the airport probe broke, a spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism issued a follow-up statement.

“London Stansted Airport is right to launch an investigation and we will be paying close attention to the outcome,” he said.

The United Kingdom saw the highest per capita rate of violent anti-Jewish attacks in the world in 2025, with 121 serious cases among its 300,000-person Jewish population, according to Israel’s Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism.

But according to a British Jewish watchdog, there were 3,700 antisemitic incidents altogether in 2025 in the U.K., the second-highest total in the world.

London’s Jewish community in particular has endured an onslaught of violent assaults recently. Synagogues and ambulances have been firebombed, people have been stabbed in the streets, and Jewish-owned businesses have been vandalized across London. A team of 100 officers was deployed to Jewish neighborhoods in the British capital to combat the rise in anti-Jewish violence.