Al Jazeera has strongly rejected the Israeli military’s claim that its correspondent killed in an airstrike in Gaza this week was a Hamas operative who took part in the October 7 attacks.
A shocking video showing the decapitated body of Ismail al-Ghoul was shared on social media after he was attacked in his car in Gaza City on Wednesday.
His cameraman, Rami al-Rifi, and a passing boy on a bicycle, Khalid Shawa, were also killed.
While regional news this week was dominated by other high-profile killings, many Palestinians also focused on the murder of the locally known journalist.
In a statement on Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) described Ismail al-Ghoul as a “military operative of Hamas and a terrorist of Nukhba,” claiming he was part of an elite unit of the armed group.
It was alleged that as part of his role, he “instructed other officers on how to record operations and was actively involved in recording and publicizing attacks on IDF forces.” The IDF did not include Rami al-Rifi in its statement.
Al Jazeera called the accusation against its employee “baseless” and said it “highlights Israel’s long history of fabricating and falsifying evidence used to cover up its heinous crimes.”
Ismail’s brother Jihad also told the BBC that his late brother was a strict citizen who “showed the suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza City to the outside world”.
The reporter lives in Gaza City and has become a familiar face on the Qatari television channel, a popular news source in the region but one that has faced heavy criticism from the Israeli authorities.
As Friday prayers in Gaza focused on the late Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated in the Iranian capital Tehran, some Palestinians said they were also thinking of those killed closer to home.
“I’m really devastated for Ismail (al-Ghoul),” said Maha Sarsak, who moved from Shujaiyeh to the center of the strip. “I used to keep up with the news in the north through him on social media. We didn’t always have a TV, but we could hear his voice on the radio.”
Journalists in Gaza this week removed their bulletproof vests at a rally honoring al-Ghoul and al-Rifi.
A friend of the couple said: “They hadn’t slept or eaten for days. They had even lost a lot of weight.”
Ismail al-Ghoul reported on the Israeli raid on Shifa Hospital in March and was arrested by the IDF on the spot, but released without charge after 12 hours. Al Jazeera claimed that this “refutes and refutes their false claim about his ties to any organization.”
The two Al Jazeera journalists’ last assignment was to gather reactions to the news of Haniyeh’s death. Their car was attacked near the Hamas leader’s destroyed home in Shati Camp, an urban refugee camp.
Israel has barred international journalists from entering the Palestinian territory during the war, except for limited and tightly controlled visits with the Israeli military. Before the closure of the Rafah crossing with Gaza, Egypt also barred journalists.
For 10 months, many networks, including the BBC, have relied on local Palestinian staff for their on-the-ground news reporting and hired new employees or freelancers.
Al Jazeera said Ismail al-Ghoul had been working for the channel since November. It said he had endured “hardships” during the war, including the loss of his father and brother.
Other cameramen told how al-Rifi had used his technical expertise to help them film.
After images of the dead Khaled al-Shawa, the boy killed in the attack, were widely circulated, the boy’s mother posted a message on social media pleading for him to be remembered as well.
“My son is not an unknown martyr,” she said. “We should name our martyrs. They should not talk about us as numbers.”
Al Jazeera, which broadcasts in English and Arabic, has recently faced a series of attacks on its staff in Gaza and their families.
In late October, Wael Dahdouh, the network’s well-known bureau chief, received news over the radio that his wife, daughter, son and grandchild had been killed in an Israeli airstrike.
In December, he was injured in an attack that also killed another Al Jazeera cameraman, Samer Abudaqa.
In January, Dahdouh’s son, Hamza, and Mustafa Thuria, a video stringer, were killed in an attack while working for Al Jazeera. The IDF later claimed the men were “members of terrorist organizations in Gaza.”
Al Jazeera has previously strongly denied Israel’s claims and accused the organisation of systematically attacking its own employees.
The network has also condemned the Israeli government’s decision in May to ban its broadcast in the country, accusing it of harming national security. The ban was extended last month by the Tel Aviv District Court.
The United Nations has called for a full investigation and accountability into the killings of Al Jazeera journalists and others, saying journalists everywhere must be protected.
There are varying estimates of the number of media workers killed since the unprecedented, deadly Hamas-led attacks on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.
According to the Committee for the Protection of JournalistsThe latest deaths in Gaza bring the number of journalists killed to 113, including 108 Palestinians, three Lebanese and two Israelis killed in the October 7 attack.
