Al Jazeera journalist reportedly held 26-year-old Noa Argamani captive in his home and tried to prevent her rescue during IDF raid.
By David Rosenberg, World Israel News
An Israeli woman taken hostage by Hamas terrorists during the invasion of southwestern Israel on October 7th was held captive in the home of an Al Jazeera reporter, according to a report Sunday.
Noa Argamani, one of four Israeli hostages freed by Israel in a daring undercover special operations raid in the town of Nuseirat in central Gaza on Saturday, was found in the home of Abdallah Aljamal, a photojournalist, editor, and reporter for Al Jazeera and the Palestinian Chronicle, Open Source Intelligence Monitor reported.
Abdallah Aljamal, the Al Jazeera photojournalist who reportedly held Noa Argamani captive in his home. (Twitter/X)
Aljamal and his immediate family also attempted to block the twenty-six-year-old hostage’s rescue, and were shot and killed during the ensuing confrontation.
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor confirmed that Aljamal, his father, Ahmed Aljamal, and his wife Fatima, were killed during the raid.
In addition to his work for the Palestine Chronicle and Al Jazeera, Abdallah Aljamal had worked as a spokesman for the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Labor.
Al Jazeera denied the report, claiming that Aljamal did not have any ties to the Qatari media outlet.
“This man is not from Al Jazeera, and he did not work for Al-Jazeera at all, and he is not listed as working for Al Jazeera neither now nor in the past,” said the network’s Jerusalem bureau chief Omar al-Walid.
“We do not know him, and all the rumors that have been spread are empty of content and not true at all.”
The IDF later contradicted Al Jazeera‘s claims, however, saying that the agency’s journalist had indeed been holding Israelis captive in his home.
However, the IDF named the three other captives – Shlomi Ziv, Almog Meir Jan and Andrey Kozlov – as being the hostages held by Aljamal.
“’Journalist’ Abdallah Aljamal was a Hamas terrorist holding Almog, Andrey and Shlomi hostage in his family’s home in Nuseirat,” the IDF tweeted in response to Al Jazeera’s statement.
“No press vest can make him innocent of the crimes he has committed. AlJazeera what’s this terrorist doing on your website?”
Last month, Israel temporarily banned Al Jazeera from operating within its borders, after passing a law allowing the government to shutter hostile media outlets for up to 45 days at a time under a wartime regulation passed earlier this year.
The Israeli Supreme Court upheld the ban, but shortened its duration by ten days, spurring the government to appeal the move, insisting on extending the closure.
On Sunday, the court ordered the Israeli government to respond to a petition calling for the overturning of the law under which Al Jazeera was banned, giving the state up to August 5th to justify the legislation.