The IDF on Sunday confirmed reports that Israeli hostages were held captive by a journalist after a Gazan human rights group named Abdallah Aljamal who was killed along with his physician father, during the extraction of Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov and Shlomi Ziv from captivity. Originally, he was mistakenly reported to have been holding Noa Argamani.
"Following the completion of IDF and ISA examinations of reports on the subject, it can be confirmed that Abdallah Aljamal was an operative in the Hamas terrorist organization, who held the hostages Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv captive in his family home in Nuseirat," the military said. "The hostages were held captive by Abdallah Aljamal and members of his family in their home. This is further evidence of the deliberate use of civilian homes and buildings by the Hamas terrorist organization to hold Israeli hostages captive in the Gaza Strip".
According to Palestinian reporting, the hostages were held by Aljamal and his family and was killed during the operation to extract them on Saturday in the Nuseirat refugee camp.
According to Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor Chairman Rami Abdu, "In an initial testimony documenting the killings committed by the Israeli army in the Nuseirat camp today, the EuroMedHR reported that the Israeli army used a ladder to enter the home of Dr. Ahmed Al Jamal. The army immediately executed 36-year-old Fatima Al Jamal upon encountering her on the staircase. The forces then stormed the house and executed her husband, journalist Abdullah Al-Jamal, 36, and his father, Dr. Ahmed, 74, in front of his grandchildren. The army also shot their daughter, Zainab, 27, who sustained serious injuries."
Abdallah Aljamal worked for Al Jazeera and published almost daily articles in English in the "Palestine Chronicle" since the beginning of the war. Days before the operation in Nuseirat, he wrote about the killing of the mayor of Nuseirat which he referred to as "the best mayor" despite being a member of Hamas and taking part in terrorist activities.
Al Jazeera denied any affiliation with the reporter. “This man is not from Al-Jazeera, and he did not work for Al Jazeera at all, and he is not listed as working for Al Jazeera neither now nor in the past,” Al Jazeera Jerusalem bureau chief Omar al-Walid said on Sunday. “We do not know him, and all the rumors that have been spread are empty of content and not true at all.”
The day before, he brought testimonies from what he called "the massacre at the Nuseirat school," where, according to the IDF, at least 17 terrorists hiding in the UNRWA school were killed.
The "massacre of the people" and the "courageous" action on October 7
In another article, a week and a half ago, he wrote about the people's hardships after enduring a massacre while another article said that resistance is their only option. The article included baseless claims such as capturing soldiers in Jabaliya, which the IDF categorically denied. In the first article he published after October 7, he referred to the October 7 massacre as a "courageous operation" by Hamas.
The IDF operation was initially called "Seeds of Summer" and later "Operation Arnon," named after special forces soldier Arnon Zamora was killed. In addition to Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Shlomi Ziv, and Andrey Kozlov were rescued from Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip after 246 days in Hamas captivity.
Noa Argamani rescued from Gaza
(Video: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)
The forces stormed both locations, with Noa being held in one building on the ground floor - and Andrey, Shlomi, and Almog on the third floor of another building. The two buildings were located a few hundred meters apart, and the captives were held with Gazan families, who had been paid by Hamas.
The operation's planners considered separately rescuing Noa Argamani, but decided against it, fearing Noa's rescue would lead to the terrorists harming the other hostages. Therefore, it was decided to storm both buildings simultaneously. Upon returning to Israel, Noa met with her father and later with her mother Liora, who is terminally ill with cancer, and had one wish: "to meet Noa before her last days." Noa's partner, Avinatan Or, remains in captivity.