Joe McConnell
Al Jazeera did it strongly rejected the Israeli military’s claim that its correspondent killed in an air strike in Gaza this week was a Hamas operative who took part in the October 7 attacks.
A heartbreaking video shared on social media shows the decapitated body of Ismail al-Ghoul, who was targeted in his car on Wednesday in Gaza City.
His cameraman, Rami al-Rifi, and a passing bicycle rider, Khalid Shawa, were also killed.
While regional news has been dominated this week by other high-profile killings, many Palestinians have also focused on the killing of the prominent local journalist.
In a statement released on Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) described Ismail al-Ghoul as an “agent of Hamas’ military wing and a Nukhba terrorist,” saying he was part of an elite unit of the armed group.
He said that as part of his role, he “instructed other officers on how to record operations and was actively involved in recording and publicizing attacks against IDF troops.” The IDF did not include Rami al-Rifi in its statement.
Al Jazeera called the accusation against its staff “baseless” and said it “highlights Israel’s long history of fabrications and false evidence used to cover up its heinous crimes.”
Ismail’s brother, Jihad, also told the BBC that his late brother was just a civilian who “represented to the outside world the suffering of the Palestinian people inside Gaza City”.
A resident of Gaza City, the journalist had become a regular face on the Qatar-based TV channel, a popular news source in the region but which faced strong criticism from Israeli authorities.
As Friday prayers in Gaza were dedicated to 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 am truly saddened for Ismail [al-Ghoul]”, said Maha Sarsak, who was moved from Shujaiyeh to the center of the strip. “I kept up to date with the news from the north through him on social media. We didn’t always have a TV, but we could hear his voice on the radio.”
This week, journalists in Gaza took off their bulletproof vests at a rally in honor of 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 covered the Israeli raid on Shifa Hospital in March and was arrested by the IDF on the spot, but released after 12 hours without charge. Al Jazeera said this “disproves and refutes their false claim about his affiliation with any organization.”
The two Al Jazeera journalists’ last assignment was to gather reactions to the news of Haniyeh’s death. Their car was targeted near the Hamas leader’s destroyed home in Shati Camp, an urban refugee camp.
Israel has barred international journalists from entering Palestinian territory during the war, except for limited and highly controlled visits with the Israeli military. Before closing its Rafah border crossing with Gaza, Egypt also barred journalists from entering.
Over the course of more than 10 months, many television networks, including the BBC, have relied on local Palestinian staff to provide news coverage on the ground and have hired new staff 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 described how al-Rifi used his technical expertise to help them film.
After images of the body of Khaled al-Shawa, the boy killed in the attack, were widely publicized, the boy’s mother posted a message on social media pleading for him, too, to be remembered.
“My son is not an unidentified martyr,” he said. “We should name our martyrs. They should not talk about us as numbers.”
Al Jazeera, which broadcasts in English and Arabic, has recently been the victim of a series of attacks against its staff in Gaza and their families.
In late October, Wael Dahdouh, the network’s well-known bureau chief, was reporting when he received live news that his wife, daughter, son and grandson 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, an attack killed Mr. Dahdouh’s son, Hamza, and Mustafa Thuria, a video stringer, while they were working for Al Jazeera. The IDF later said the men were “members of terrorist organizations based in Gaza.”
Al Jazeera has previously vehemently denied Israel’s claims, accusing it of systematically targeting its employees.
The network also condemned the Israeli government’s decision in May to ban its broadcast in the country on the grounds that it harms national security. Last month, the ban was extended by the Tel Aviv District Court.
The United Nations has called for a thorough investigation and accountability for the killings of Al Jazeera journalists and others, saying journalists everywhere must be protected.
There are differing estimates of the number of media workers killed after Hamas’s unprecedented and deadly attacks on Israel, which sparked the war in Gaza.
However, according to the Committee to Protect JournalistsThe latest deaths in Gaza bring the number of journalists killed to 113, including 108 Palestinians, three Lebanese and two Israelis killed during the October 7 assault.
