Over the weekend, in a daring and dangerous operation, Israeli Special Forces miraculously rescued four hostages taken on October 7, 2023 — Noa Argamani (25), Almog Meir (21), Andrei Kozlov (27) and Shlomi Ziv (40). They were being held inside a “civilian” apartment building in a Gaza Strip “refugee camp.”
The details of their captors are horrific, although not surprising.
Abdallah Aljamal and his father were killed in the raid. Abdallah Aljamal’s biography is on the website for Qatari owned Al Jazeera and his father was a doctor. They were holding hostages inside their home.
Al Jazeera disputes the IDF’s account.
“The X account of the Israeli Ministry of Defense, and some Israeli websites, quoted the name of a Palestinian journalist from Gaza called Abdullah Al-Jamal and claimed that he works with #AlJazeera, and that his name was linked to what happened in the Israeli army’s liberation of four prisoners in the central Gaza Strip on Saturday,” Al Jazeera PR posted on X over the weekend. “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. 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.”
In April, while Aljamal was holding hostages inside his home, he wrote a story lamenting the destruction of “civilian” infrastructure in the Gaza Strip for a U.S. based, non-profit media outlet.
In May, Israel banned Al Jazeera from operating inside the country. The ban has been extended. From Reuters:
A ban on Al Jazeera’s operations in Israel was extended for another 45 days by Israel’s telecoms regulator on Sunday after the cabinet agreed its broadcasts posed a threat to security.
A Tel Aviv court last week upheld an initial 35-day ban on Al Jazeera operations in Israel, imposed by the government on national security grounds, which ended on Saturday.
The network’s broadcasts on the cable and satellite companies and access to its websites will remain blocked, Israel’s Communications Ministry said.
“We will not allow the terrorist channel Al Jazeera to broadcast from Israel and endanger our fighters,” said Shlomo Karhi, adding that the law authorised him as communications minister to take such action against foreign broadcasters.
“In light of the seriousness of the damage to the security of the state I am convinced that the closure orders will be extended in the future as well,” he said.
