The Journalist Who Was a Hamas Terrorist

For months, a Hamas terrorist kept three Israeli hostages – Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomo Ziv – prisoner in his home while he worked as a journalist, penning reports about Israel and Gaza for media outlets read by millions of people around the world. Instead of shunning his reportage, much of the globe’s journalistic community has shrugged its shoulders, continuing to rely on “reporting” that now is openly linked to Hamas.

This is a gross violation of journalistic standards.

Kidnapped and Held in Gaza

On October 7, 2023, Almog Meir Jan was attending the Nova music festival in Israel; Andrey Kozlov and Shlomo Ziv were there working as security guards. Shortly after 6 AM, sirens tore through the music festival: thousands of Hamas terrorists were crossing into Israel. The terrorists rampaged for hours, shooting, burning, raping, torturing, and kidnapping hundreds of Israelis. Almog, Andrey and Shlomo were kidnapped and brought to captivity in Gaza, along with over 240 other Israelis. The three men were held prisoner for eight months until Israeli special forces rescued them, as well as a female hostage, Noa Argamani, on June 8, 2024 in a spectacular, daring raid.

For the last three months of their captivity, Almog, Andrey and Shlomo were held in a private home. The New York Times described the conditions of their captivity: “idling away the hours in a darkened room in Gaza…Andrey Kozlov sometimes heard one of his captors on the other side of the door typing away on a laptop.”

The man tapping on his laptop was the apartment’s owner, Abdallah Aljamal, a Hamas operative and “journalist” whose articles he wrote while guarding the hostages were read internationally. When Israeli commandos stormed into his apartment, Aljamal was accompanied by his 36-year-old wife, 27-year-old sister, and 74-year-old father, a well-known physician. All were seemingly aware that three Israeli hostages were imprisoned inside the Aljamai’s home.

The four rescued hostages

“Following checks by the IDF and the Shin Bet,” Israel’s military posted on X the following day, citing the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and Israel’s intelligence agency, “it can be confirmed that Abdullah al-Jamal was an operative of the Hamas terrorist organization, who kept the hostages Almog Meir, Andrey Kozlov and Shlomi Ziv in his family home in Nuseirat” in central Gaza. “Abdullah’s family home held hostages alongside family members. This is further proof that the Hamas terrorist organization uses the civilian population as a human shield.”

An independent CNN analyst reported that there was “robust fighting” in the area as Israeli forces attempted to withdraw with the hostages. Aljami, his wife, and his father were all killed during the rescue.

Abdullah Aljamal’s Journalistic Propaganda

It should have been obvious even before the June 8 rescue that Aljhamal wasn’t a disinterested journalist. In addition to his journalistic jobs, he was simultaneously serving as the spokesman for the Hamas-controlled Labor Ministry inside Gaza.

After the rescue, as it became clearer than ever that Aljamal was a Hamas operative rather than an independent journalist, one might have assumed that readers and information outlets around the world would shun or delete his work. Yet nothing of the sort has happened in the many weeks since Israel’s June 8 rescue operation.

Take Al Jazeera, the Qatari-based global media company. It’s kept up a 2019 article Aljamal penned about “Tales of torture from Israel’s prisons” on its website. In it, Aljamal offered statistics and interviews with people who accuse Israel of conducting the most gruesome tortures, akin to tales from the Spanish Inquisition. Given his role as jailor and Hamas terrorist, one might question the accuracy of his claims – yet Al Jazeera is happy to keep his dubious report on its website, available for all to read.

In the United States, the Green Party has kept a picture of devastation it claims is the result of Israeli aggression in Gaza on its website, noting that the photojournalist who took this picture is none other than Aljamal. The fact that he was a Hamas jailor seemingly doesn’t bother the good folks who populate the party.

Amazon continues to sell the book These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons, which purports to detail horrific Israeli torture methods perpetrated on innocent people. Richard Falk, the former UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories is listed as an author of this book. Yet the shocking “interviews” were conducted by none other than Aljamal.

Aljamal’s employer, the Palestine Chronicle

When the Israeli hostages heard Aljamal tapping on his laptop, he was writing articles for his employer, an American online news site called Palestine Chronicle, based in Seattle. Palestine Chronicle, according to its website, is a non-for-profit entity; as a 501(c)3 organization it is tax exempt. Palestine Chronicle paid Hamas operative Aljamal for his work, in violation of US law, which recognizes Hamas as a terrorist entity and forbids US citizens from doing business with it.

Palestine Chronicle is the brainchild of an activist named Dr. Ramzy Baroud; it’s run by a tax-exempt Washington State-based foundation he formed called People Media Project. In the weeks since Aljamal’s role as a Hamas-affiliated jailor came to light, institutions around the world have had ample opportunity to drop their links to Palestine Chronicle. Yet a large number of organizations have maintained their online links to this tainted publication.

Take the Library of Congress, which continues to retain some articles from Palestine Chronicle on its site. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology continues to list Palestine Chronicle as a “recommended” source through which to “understand” the “Israel and Palestine…conflict” and links to its webpage from its official university library website.

Britain’s prestigious newspaper The Guardian has cited information in Palestine Chronicle through the years. Even after Aljamal was unveiled as a Hamas terrorist, The Guardian has declined to remove these links.

How Can We Fight Back?

As news consumers, it’s crucial we educate ourselves and speak out when we see gross violations of journalistic standards like the ones detailed above. Call or email to demand that universities, news organizations, booksellers and libraries sever their links with Aljamal, with his boss Dr. Ramzy Baroud, and with Palestine Chronicle’s biased, inaccurate reporting.

A small handful of politicians in the US are saying enough is enough. Representatives Jason Smith (R-MO), James Comer (R-KY) and Virginia Foxx (R-NC) have written to Attorney General Merrick Garland demanding the US revoke Palestine Chronicle’s tax-exempt status. “Based on the facts available, The Palestine Chronicle and People Media Project appear to be at the very least complicit in supporting Hamas, and at worst full-fledged financiers of terrorism,” the legislators noted.

The National Jewish Advocacy Center, a nonprofit, is requesting that the FBI and US Justice Department investigate Palestine Chronicle for breaking US law by employing a member of Hamas.

Almog Meir, one of the hostages held captive by Almajal for months, filed a lawsuit in July 2024 against the Palestine Chronicle’s chief officers, arguing that they “aided, abetted, and materially supported Hamas and its operative and spokesperson Abdallah Aljamal by employing him as a correspondent and platforming his reports.”

These actions are a start. It’s time to demand that journalists with links to terror not to be given platforms spread their odious propaganda.