A Palestinian journalist was hiding Israeli hostages at his home for Hamas, Israel has said, before they were rescued in an IDF raid on Saturday. The Israeli army said that Abdullah al-Jamal was keeping Almog Meir Jan, 22, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 41, at his family home in Gaza.
IDF commandos stormed the building on Saturday by ladder, freeing the hostages while killing Abdullah, his father – Dr Ahmed, and his wife Fatima in the process. His daughter and other family members are also reported to have been injured.
The IDF went on to accuse Abdullah of holding the hostages in his home along with his family members, and said it was further proof that the Hamas terror group was using Gaza’s civilian population as ‘human shields’. Abdullah wrote for Palestine Chronicle – a U.S.-based non profit news website, as a freelancer, and once contributed to an Op-ed in 2019 published by Al Jazeera – the Qatar-based news network which has been temporarily banned in Israel.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), the IDF addressed Al Jazeera and asked ‘what’s this terrorist doing on your website?’ ‘Abdallah’s home held hostages, along with his family members,’ the IDF said, adding: ‘This is further proof that the terrorist organisation Hamas uses the civilian population as a human shield.’ Abdullah had written a number of articles since Hamas’s attacked Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people in Israel and taking 250 people back into Gaza as hostages.
Article written by Abdullah and published on the Palestine Chronicle had titles included ‘Resistance our only option – Palestinians react to news of Israeli soldiers captured in Jabaliya’, ’31 Martyrs in a single Israeli strike – Voices from the Gaza Genocide’ and ‘Testimonies from ‘Camp 2′ massacre in Nuseirat’. However, the IDF’s claims have been questioned by some on social media. Muhammad Shehada, the chief of comms for Euro-Med Monitor (a Geneva-based rights organisation), said Abdullah lived in a multi-storey building, and that he lived in one of seven homes raided by the IDF. Hostages were found in two of those, he said.
He also pointed out that Israel’s official X account had previously said that Noa Argamani, 26 – the fourth Israeli hostage rescued in the raids – was being held in the journalists’s house, before this was later changed to say it was in fact the three men. Al Jazeera, meanwhile, denied that it employed Abdullah, pointing out that he contributed to the one Op-ed in 2019, and accused Israel of ‘slander and misinformation’.
‘Al Jazeera Media Network confirms that Abdullah Al-Jamal has never worked with the Network, but had contributed to an Op-ed in 2019 and that these allegations are completely unfounded,’ Al Jazeera wrote on X. It added: ‘The Network also stresses that these allegations are a continuation of the process of slander and misinformation aimed at harming Al Jazeera’s reputation, professionalism, and independence. It calls for accuracy before publishing any of these allegations, the repetition of which has become ridiculous. Al Jazeera Media Network reserves all its legal rights to refute all these allegations.’
A biography on Al Jazeera’s website for Abdullah describes him as ‘a Gaza based reporter and photojournalist.’ He often reports from the ongoing ‘March of Return’ protests at the fence separating besieged Gaza from Israel’. The Palestine Chronicle ran a news story on Abdullah’s death, saying he had been ‘murdered’ in the IDF’s Gaza raid. It described him as a freelancer who contributed to the platform. ‘Abdallah Aljamal’s reports have focused entirely on the humanitarian situation in Gaza, especially in the central part of the Strip, starting shortly after the war,’ the Palestine Chronicle said in a statement published in its article. ‘His contributions became frequent when Israel deliberately began killing journalists, making it nearly impossible for the Palestinian voice to break away from the Gaza siege,’ the statement added.
Euro-Med Monitor released details on a preliminary investigation into the raid. ‘In a preliminary investigation into the field executions by the Israeli army at the Nusseirat refugee camp yesterday, @EuroMedHR stated that soldiers used a ladder to break through the residence of Dr. Ahmed Al-Jamal,’ group said. ‘Upon encountering 36-year-old Fatima Al-Jamal on the staircase, they immediately shot her dead. The troops then stormed the house and executed her husband, 36-year-old journalist Abdullah Al-Jamal, and his father, 74-year-old Dr. Ahmed Al-Jamal, in front of his grandchildren. Additionally, their 27-year-old daughter, Zainab, was shot and seriously injured,’ it added.
Jan (pictured), Kozlov and Ziv – along with Argamani – had all been abducted from the Nova music festival during Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that triggered the war. Many Israelis shed tears of joy when they heard of the release of the four captives, all reported in good health. But the rescue operation resulted in the death of dozens – if not hundreds – of Palestinians in the area at the time of the raid.
The health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said 274 people were killed and 698 wounded, in what it labelled the ‘Nuseirat massacre’. Among those were at least 64 children, 57 women and 37 elderly people, the ministry said. These figures that could not be independently verified. Israel has said the number of fatalities was lower than the ministry’s total. The Israeli military said the extraction team and the four rescued captives came under heavy gun and grenade fire by militants, who killed one police officer, while Israel’s air force launched strikes that reduced nearby buildings to rubble. Pictured: Rescued hostage Noa Argamani, 26.
The killing of so many Palestinians, in a raid that Israelis celebrated as a stunning success, showed the heavy cost of such operations on top of the already soaring toll of the 8-month-old war ignited by Hamas’ October 7 attack. The Israeli bombing was ‘hell,’ witness Mohamed al-Habash told The Associated Press. ‘We saw many fighter jets flying over the area. We saw people fleeing in the streets. Women and children were screaming and crying.’ The operation in Nuseirat, a built-up refugee camp dating to the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, was the largest rescue since October 7.
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