That inside Gaza there is a certain closeness between the journalists present (all Palestinians) and Hamas is much more than a suspicion. Which now becomes concrete proof.
Three of the four hostages rescued by Israeli Special Forces in the Gaza Strip over the weekend were held in the home of Abdallah Aljamal, a Palestinian journalist and member of the Hamas terrorist group. The Israeli Army confirmed this on Sunday. The rumors had circulated on social media after Ramy Abdu, head of the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, said in a post on family, including Abdallah and his father, Dr. Ahmed Aljamal. Abdu posted an image from the Aljamal home alongside his post, although he did not mention the possibility of hostages being held there.
Abdallah Aljamal was previously spokesperson for the Hamas Ministry of Labor in Gaza and in the past collaborated with various newspapers including al-Jazeera although the Qatari broadcaster denies this through Omar al-Walid, dial-Jazeera bureau chief in Jerusalem : «This man is not from al-Jazeera, and has not worked for al-Jazeera at all, and is not known to work for Al-Jazeera now or in the past. We don't know him and all the rumors that have been spread are devoid of content and are not true at all.” But then why can you still find his profile on the Doha broadcaster's website complete with photos and description of his activities: «Abdallah Aljamal is a reporter and photojournalist from Gaza. He often talks about the 'March of Return' protests underway at the barrier separating besieged Gaza from Israel »
During the war in Gaza, numerous articles by Aljamal were published by the Palestine Chronicle, which provides daily news on Gaza from Washington State. While hostages Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov and Shlomi Ziv were held captive in Abdallah Aljamal's house, the fourth hostage, Noa Argamani, was rescued from a very nearby building during Saturday's operation. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they were able to confirm, together with the Shin Bet security agency, that Aljamal was holding the three hostages in his home in Nuseirat, along with his family. “This is further evidence that the Hamas terrorist organization uses the civilian population as a human shield,” the IDF said. Argamani, Meir Jan, Kozlov and Ziv had been abducted from the Supernova music festival near the community of Re'im on the morning of October 7, when around 3,000 Hamas-led terrorists killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages in a killing spree in southern Israel . Officers from the elite Yamam counter-terrorism unit, together with Shin Bet operatives, simultaneously raided two multi-storey buildings in the heart of Nuseirat, where the four hostages were being held hostage by Hamas-affiliated families and security guards. terrorist group, according to reports from the military. Hamas' government press office said at least 274 people were killed in the operation, an unverified figure that does not distinguish between fighters and civilians. The IDF acknowledged killing Palestinian civilians during the fighting but placed blame on Hamas for holding hostages and fighting in a densely populated civilian environment. «We know of less than one hundred Palestinian victims. I don't know how many of them are terrorists,” IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said on Saturday.
It is certainly not the first time that some “journalists” have been involved in Hamas activities. On October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists were not the only ones documenting war crimes committed during their deadly rampage in southern Israel. Some of their atrocities were captured by Gaza-based photojournalists working for the Associated Press and Reuters news agencies, but also for CNN and the New York Times who strangely were at the sites of the early morning massacres. What were they doing there so early on what would normally be a quiet Saturday morning? Was it coordinated with Hamas? Four names appear on AP photo credits from the Israel-Gaza border area on October 7: Hassan Eslaiah, Yousef Masoud, Ali Mahmud and Hatem Ali. Eslaiah, a freelancer who also works for CNN, entered Israel, took photos of an Israeli tank on fire and then photographed the infiltrators entering Kibbutz Kfar Aza that we at Panorama.it visited last February . Honest Reporting obtained screenshots of Eslaiah's now-removed tweets on X, in which he documented himself standing in front of the Israeli tank. He was wearing neither a press vest nor a helmet, and the Arabic caption of his tweet read: “Live from inside the settlements of the Gaza Strip.” A photo later emerged showing Eslaiah with Hamas leader and mastermind of the October 7 massacre Yahya Sinwar kissing him affectionately on the cheek. More than journalists, they seem like terrorists to us and it is time to start calling things by their name.
