German public broadcaster cuts ties with Palestinian media partner employing Hamas terrorist

Coalition politicians demand full investigation, citing damage to ZDF’s credibility.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

One of Germany’s two leading public broadcasters announced Monday that it was cutting longstanding ties with its Palestinian partner because it employed a Hamas terrorist.

Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF) said that Israel had supplied evidence proving that Ahmed Abu Mutair, an engineer who worked for the Palestine Media Production (PMP) in Gaza, “was a member of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades.”

“In response, the ZDF has suspended cooperation until further notice,” the broadcaster said in a press release.

PMP had been a service provider for ZDF since 1996.

ZDF made the move despite noting that “the document does not provide any information on when or how the engineer worked for Hamas, or on the tasks he undertook.”

However, the al-Qassam Brigades are Hamas’ military arm, meaning that Abu Mutair was not fulfilling a civilian role in the administration of the Gaza Strip.

The Bild newspaper cited IDF sources saying that the 37-year-old had been “deliberately targeted” by the army.

This would seemingly indicate that he held an important position in the terrorist armed forces, as Israel focuses on eliminating those in the leadership rather than ordinary foot soldiers.

PMP’s premises in Deir el-Balah, south of Gaza City, were hit by a rocket 11 days ago.

The airstrike wounded one PMP journalist and killed Abu Mutair and the 8-year-old son of another employee, causing outrage in Germany.

At the time, ZDF Editor-in-Chief Bettina Schausten called it “unacceptable that media professionals are attacked while carrying out their work” and said its own investigation had “yielded no evidence” of wrongdoing that should cause such an attack.

She expressed the company’s “deepest condolences” to the victims and their families.

The broadcaster also made clear that Abu Mutair was responsible for handling sound transmission at PMP and was “not involved” in journalistic matters.

Still, German politicians from the ruling conservative-led coalition demanded the incident be “fully investigated.”

Secretary-General of the Christian Social Union party Martin Huber posted on X that the fact “that a Hamas terrorist worked for ZDF is an outrageous occurrence. This seriously damages the credibility and previous reporting on the conflict.”

“ZDF and all reporters must ensure that they are not employing Hamas terrorists or disseminating Hamas propaganda,” he continued. “This incident demonstrates how perfidiously Hamas controls and systematically infiltrates the media to influence public opinion.”