US should 'back Israel to the hilt': Cotton
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., discusses the rescue of Israeli hostages, Benjamin Netanyahu's handling of the war, Biden's apology to Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the delay of the Ukraine aid bill, and speculation about Trump's election as vice president.
The Israel Defense Forces on Sunday accused the Qatari regime-owned Al Jazeera news organization of employing a Hamas terrorist whose family was holding three of the hostages freed in Saturday's IDF raid.
The IDF killed suspected Al Jazeera reporter Abdallah Aljamal during its dramatic rescue mission in Nuseirat in the Gaza Strip.
The IDF wrote on the crimes he has committed. @AlJazeera, what is this terrorist doing on his website?”
Al Jazeera listed Aljamal as an author on its website and he reportedly wrote at least one article for the Doha-based network.
But the head of Al Jazeera's now-closed Jerusalem bureau, Omar al-Walid, denied that Aljamal worked for Al Jazeera, according to the Times of Israel.
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“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 either now or in the past,” al-Walid said, adding: “We do not know him, and all the rumors that have been spread are empty of content and are not true at all.”
Al-Walid said Al Jazeera plans to sue anyone who spreads claims that Abdallah Aljamal is connected to the outlet.
The IDF has accused the Al Jazeera news organization of employing a Hamas terrorist. (Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile for Web Summit Qatar via Getty Images/File)
Imran Khan, chief correspondent for Al Jazeera's English channel, wrote on Instagram that Aljamal was self-employed in the past.
“The individual in question who died in the attack along with his family was, at one point, a freelance journalist,” Khan wrote. “He has never worked for Al Jazeera in Arabic or English.”
Aljamal reported for the Palestine Chronicle, which on Sunday wrote that he is “saddened to learn that Abdallah Aljamal, one of his collaborators in the Gaza Strip, has been killed in the latest Israeli massacre in the Nuseirat refugee camp.”
In response to a query from Fox News Digital, the Palestine Chronicle responded with the statement and an article about Aljamal's death.
“Particularly tragic is that Aljamal's last contribution to the Palestine Chronicle covered an earlier massacre, in which more than 40 Palestinian civilians were killed at a UNRWA school in the refugee camp,” the article reads. “Israeli media is linking Aljamal's family to the Israeli captives, claiming that Abdallah's father, Dr. Ahmed, and other family members were executed in the process of the bloody rescue mission.”
“Those claims have been refuted by respected online commentators and journalists, who noted [out] the inconsistencies in the official Israeli narrative.
The Palestine Chronicle is a US-registered nonprofit organization with a post office box in Mountlake Terrace, Washington.
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Al Jazeera reporters have been involved in supporting terrorism over the years, according to a detailed report updated in May published by the Washington, D.C.-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), titled “Al-Jazeera in Arabic: the Qatari-owned television channel that promotes Islamist terrorism around the world.”
Yigal Carmon, president and founder of MEMRI, listed examples of Al-Jazeera reporters who allegedly helped Hamas in the October 7 massacre in Israel: “Some Al-Jazeera journalists have recently been 'outed' as Hamas fighters and of Islamic Jihad in Palestine. A Palestinian journalist working for Al-Jazeera, Muhammad Wishah, appears to have also been a commander in the military wing of Hamas, according to documents on a laptop found by the Israeli military at a Hamas base in northern Gaza.
IDF forces are seen operating in Rafah, a city in the Gaza Strip. (IDF Spokesperson's Office)
Carmon noted that “Another Al-Jazeera correspondent, Ismail Abu Omar, who participated in the October 7 attack, documenting it from within the Gaza envelope, was flown to Doha for medical treatment on February 19 after having been wounded in an Israeli airstrike in Rafah a week earlier has been identified as a Hamas deputy platoon commander.
According to the MEMRI report, “Al-Jazeera employed a correspondent, Tayseer Allouni, who was sentenced in Spain to seven years in prison for transferring funds to Al-Qaeda – and Al-Qaeda even issued a public statement in support of him. “Jazeera live-streamed the murder of an American soldier by an Iraqi sniper, which could only have happened if the media network had coordinated with the perpetrators of the murder.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Qatar's ambassador to the United States, Sheikh Meshal bin Hamad Al Thani, Al Jazeera and the Qatari embassy in London for comment on the MEMRI report.
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Hamas massacred nearly 1,200 people on October 7 in southern Israel, including more than 30 Americans. The Sunni terrorist organization Hamas currently holds more than 121 hostages in Gaza.
Aljamal's wife died during the IDF rescue operation.
A Palestinian fighter from the armed wing of Hamas takes part in a military parade to mark the anniversary of the 2014 war with Israel, near the border in the central Gaza Strip, July 19, 2023. (Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/File)
Last week, a Tel Aviv-Jaffa district court determined that there is a “close connection” between Al Jazeera and Hamas. The court's vice president, Shai Yaniv, said that based on a review of classified documents, “the picture that emerges from the documents categorically demonstrates [and] with compelling, clear and unambiguous evidence of the close, long-term connection between the Hamas terrorist organization and the Al Jazeera media network, with the Hamas terrorist organization advancing its objectives through the channel.”
Israeli military experts told Fox News Digital that Al Jazeera uses its reporters to track Israeli military movements and then delivers the information to Hamas. Yaniv said evidence shows that Al Jazeera had damaged Israel's national security.
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Former Prime Minister of Israel Naftali Bennett wrote in Gaza civilians have been taking an active role in terrorism, with thousands participating in the October 7 massacres and rapes, and hundreds of thousands providing their homes to Hamas as terrorist bases, ammunition storage, and as a prison for hostages. Israelis”.
He added: “This is not a bug; it is a feature. Hamas's core strategy is the use of civilians as weapons, and it is what increases the number of casualties in Gaza. If Hamas is determined to kill Gazans, “No one can stop them. Only the defeat of Hamas.”
