Ismail al-Ghoul, an Al Jazeera reporter whose death Wednesday was mourned by his network as a case of “targeted assassination,” was identified Thursday by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) as a Hamas terrorist.
It was just the latest example of an Al Jazeera journalist or freelancer being exposed as a Hamas terrorist.
Al Jazeera reported on Wednesday:
Al Jazeera Arabic journalist Ismail al-Ghoul and his cameraman Rami al-Rifi have been killed in an Israeli air attack on the Gaza Strip.
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Ismail and Rami were wearing media vests and there were identifying signs on their car when they were attacked. They had last contacted their news desk 15 minutes before the strike.
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“This latest attack on Al Jazeera journalists is part of a systematic targeting campaign against the network’s journalists and their families since October 2023,” the network said.
Anti-Israel groups sprang into action. The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), whose leader celebrated the October 7 terror attack, demanded that media outlets across the world speak out against Israel’s actions.
CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said: “Media outlets and journalists in our nation and worldwide must speak out forcefully in defense of their colleagues in Gaza who are under daily threat of attack and death by a far-right, genocidal government determined to silence their voices.”
As Breitbart News has noted:
In 2007-8, CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the terror financing trial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. That case, in turn, led the FBI to discontinue its work with the organization. In 2009, a federal judge ruled that the government “produced ample evidence to establish” the ties of CAIR with Hamas, the Palestinian terror organization. The United Arab Emirates labeled CAIR a terrorist organization in 2014 (a decision that the Obama administration opposed).
But evidence had long since emerged about Ismail al-Ghoul’s terrorist sympathies and affiliations:
On Thursday, the IDF and Israel Security Agency (ISA, or Shin Bet, or Shabak) released a statement identifying the “journalist” as a terrorist:
In a joint IDF and ISA operation, the IAF struck and eliminated Ismail al-Ghoul, a Hamas Military Wing operative and Nukhba terrorist who participated in the October 7th Massacre.
As part of his role in the military wing, Al-Ghoul instructed other operatives on how to record operations and was actively involved in recording and publicizing attacks against IDF troops. His activities in the field were a vital part of Hamas’ military activity.
The IDF and ISA are operating in order to eliminate terrorists who participated in the October 7th Massacre and will continue to do so.
An IDF post on Twitter / X emphasized Al-Ghoul’s connections to Al Jazeera and front job as a journalist:
The Nukhba wing of Hamas is the elite special forces unit of the terrorist organization.
Update: Al Jazeera is denying the accusation, saying Israel is trying to hide its “crime” of killing two journalists.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of “”The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.