The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed that Gaza journalist Abdallah Aljamal was a member of the Hamas group and was holding three Israeli hostages at his home — Almog Meir-Yan, Andriy Kozlov, who holds Israeli and Russian citizenship, and Shlomi Ziva.
The Times of Israel writes about it.
Three hostages were released during the IDF operation on June 8. Aljamal kept them together with his family. The IDF said it was "further proof that Hamas uses the civilian population as human shields."
According to the head of the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, Rami Abdu, Israeli special forces killed Aljamala, his wife and father during an assault on his home in the Gaza Strip.
Aljamal worked as the press secretary of the Ministry of Labor in the Gaza Strip, which was subordinate to Hamas. In 2019, he wrote a column for the Qatari TV channel Al Jazeera, but the company denied media reports that Aljamal was an employee of theirs. Recently, he collaborated with the "Palestine Chronicle" — he wrote several articles about the deaths of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Also, Aljamal recently wrote several articles on the IDF operation in Nuseirat — that is where his house was located, where he held hostages
Freed hostages were captured during an attack by Hamas militants on the Supernova music festival on October 7, 2023. They spent 245 days in captivity. According to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health, an Israeli hostage-free operation in Nuseirat killed 274 Palestinians and injured another 698.
- In May, the Israeli government voted to close the local offices of the Al Jazeera TV channel, calling it a "mouthpiece of Hamas." Al Jazeera remained in Gaza throughout the war, broadcasting scenes of airstrikes and overcrowded hospitals and accusing Israel of mass killings. The Arabic version of the broadcaster often publishes verbatim video statements by Hamas and other militant groups in the region.
- In January 2024, Israel officially provided details of 12 staff members of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinians who may have been involved in an attack by Hamas militants on the State of Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 people and displaced 253 to the Gaza Strip. Israelʼs accusations have forced 16 countries, including the United States, to freeze $450 million in funding to the agency. UNRWA said it had released the suspects and launched an internal investigation.
- In late January, Israel said that UNRWA far outnumbered Hamas members, with 190 staff involved in the attack. On March 4, the Israeli army made new accusations that the organization employs more than 450 "military operatives" from Hamas and other groups. Subsequently, UN Secretary Antonio Guterres ordered the creation of an independent panel to investigate the activities of UNRWA. Within four days, UNRWA said some of its staff had made confessions about collaborating with Hamas under duress — they were forced to testify in Israeli prisons. How many such people there were is not specified, but the agencyʼs report describes in detail the facts of ill-treatment.