Israel reveals links between killed Gaza ‘journalists’ and Islamic Jihad

Gaza journalists being on the payroll of or collaborating with Hamas and Islamic Jihad have been a repeated controversy.

By Pesach Benson, TPS

Rebutting Palestinian claims that five journalists were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces released information on Thursday showing that the five were members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

“Intelligence from multiple sources confirmed that these individuals were Islamic Jihad operatives posing as journalists,” the IDF said.

“One source was a list of Islamic Jihad operatives discovered by the IDF during operations in the Gaza Strip. This list explicitly identified four of the eliminated individuals as members of the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization.”

The five people killed in Thursday morning’s airstrike in the central Gaza town of Nuseirat were identified as Ibrahim Jamal Ibrahim Al-Sheikh Ali, Islamic Jihad operations and combat propaganda operative; Faisal Abdallah Muhammad Abu Qamsan, Head of Security for the Islamic Jihad in Nuseirat; Mohammed Ayad Khamis al-Lada’a, Islamic Jihad combat propagandist; Ayman Nihad Abd Alrahman Jadi, Islamic Jihad combat propagandist and former Islamic Jihad naval operative; and Fadi Ihab Muhammad Ramadan Hassouna, Islamic Jihad combat propagandist in Nuseirat.

Islamic Jihad’s TV channel, Al Quds Today, said the five worked for it.

Gaza journalists being on the payroll of or collaborating with Hamas and Islamic Jihad have been a repeated controversy.

Hamas documents seized in Gaza and released by the Israel in October showed how Al Jazeera received directions for covering specific incidents and even the establishment of a special hotline.

Jeremy Loffredo, a US journalist with ties to an Iranian-funded website, was deported in October over a video he posted detailing where Iranian missiles landed in Israel

Files found by soldiers in Gaza revealed that Al Jazeera reporter Ismail al-Ghoul was an engineer in Hamas’s Gaza City Brigade who also participated in the October 7 attacks as a member of the Nukhba force.

Israel shut down Al-Jazeera’s operations in September, revoking the network’s press credentials, confiscating transmitters and blocking its websites.

The move to proscribe the Qatari network gained momentum in February after reporter Mohamed Washah was exposed as a Hamas commander when soldiers recovered his laptop in northern Gaza.

The shutdown is not permanent but is subject to renewal every 45 days. The Knesset is currently advancing legislation that would extend the ban to renewable 90-day intervals.

In June, sources in Gaza confirmed to The Press Service of Israel that Israeli hostages Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov and Shlomi Ziv were rescued from the home of Palestinian journalist Abdallah Aljama in the Nuseirat refugee camp.

At least 1,200 people were killed, and 252 Israelis and foreigners were taken hostage in Hamas’s attacks on Israeli communities near the Gaza border on October 7. Of the 97 remaining hostages, more than 30 have been declared dead.

Hamas has also been holding captive two Israeli civilians since 2014 and 2015, and the bodies of two soldiers killed in 2014.