JERUSALEM: The Israeli military confirmed on Thursday that it had killed Al-Jazeera journalist Ismail Al-Ghoul in an airstrike in Gaza, saying he was a Hamas operative who had taken part in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
Al-Jazeera dismissed what it said were “baseless allegations” which it said were an attempt to justify the deliberate killing of its journalists.
“The network condemns the accusations against its correspondent Ismail Al-Ghoul, without providing any proof, documentation or video,” it said in a statement, adding that it reserved the right to take legal action against those responsible.
The Qatari broadcaster said on Wednesday that Al-Ghoul and cameraman Ramy El Rify were both killed in an Israeli strike on Gaza City while on an assignment to film near the house of Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas chief killed in Iran earlier on the same day.
The Israeli military said Al-Ghoul was a member of the elite Nukhba unit who took part in the Oct. 7 attack and instructed Hamas operatives on how to record operations, and it said he was involved in recording and publicizing attacks on Israeli troops.
“His activities in the field were a vital part of Hamas’ military activity,” it said in a statement.
Al-Jazeera said Al-Ghoul had worked for the network since November 2023 and his only profession was as a journalist.
It said he had been arrested and detained at Al-Shifa Hospital in the northern part of the Gaza Strip when it was taken by Israeli forces in March before being released, which it said “debunks and refutes their false claim of his affiliation with any organization.”
The Israeli government has banned Al-Jazeera from operating in Israel, accusing it of posing a threat to national security.
Al Jazeera, which has been heavily critical of Israel’s campaign in Gaza, has denied inciting violence.
The Hamas-run Gaza government media office said the deaths of the two Al-Jazeera crew raised to 165 the number of Palestinian journalists killed by Israeli fire since Oct 7.
IDF claims journalist killed was Hamas operative, Al Jazeera denies allegation as ‘baseless’
https://arab.news/n4waf
IDF claims journalist killed was Hamas operative, Al Jazeera denies allegation as ‘baseless’
- Qatari network said claim that Ismail Al-Ghoul took part in Oct. 7 attack is an attempt to justify the deliberate killing of its journalists
- Al-Ghoul was killed along cameraman Ramy El Rify in an Israeli strike on Gaza City on Wednesday
Jailed French journalist files appeal in Algeria’s top court: lawyers
- Gleizes was arrested in May 2024 after traveling to Tizi Ouzou in northeastern Algeria’s Kabylia region — home to the Amazigh Kabyle people — to write about the country’s most decorated football club, Jeunesse Sportive de Kabylie
ALGIERS: French journalist Christophe Gleizes, sentenced to seven years behind bars in Algeria on terror-related charges, has filed an appeal seeking a new trial with the country’s highest court, his lawyers said Sunday.
“Christophe Gleizes registered an appeal at (the court of) Cassation” on Sunday, the deadline for filing, his French lawyer Emmanuel Daoud told AFP in a message, declining to comment further.
Gleizes’ Algerian lawyer Amirouche Bakouri made a similar announcement on Facebook.
Earlier this month, an Algerian appeals court upheld the seven-year prison term for the sportswriter, who was first convicted of “glorifying terrorism” in June.
Gleizes was arrested in May 2024 after traveling to Tizi Ouzou in northeastern Algeria’s Kabylia region — home to the Amazigh Kabyle people — to write about the country’s most decorated football club, Jeunesse Sportive de Kabylie.
In 2021, he had met in Paris with the head of the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylie (MAK), a foreign-based group designated a terrorist organization by Algiers earlier that year.
At this month’s appeal hearing, Gleizes had said he did not know the MAK had been listed as a terrorist organization, and asked the court’s forgiveness for his “journalistic mistakes.”
The court’s decision to uphold his sentence was denounced by the rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF), as well as the French government.
Gleizes’s jailing comes at a time of diplomatic friction between Paris and Algiers that began last year when France officially backed Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara region, where Algeria backs the pro-independence Polisario Front.
He is currently France’s only journalist imprisoned abroad, according to RSF, and French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to work toward his release.
Mother makes plea
The mother of the jailed journalist Christophe Gleizes wrote a letter to Algeria’s president requesting he pardon her son from his seven-year sentence on terror-related charges.
“I respectfully ask you to consider granting Christophe a pardon, so that he may regain his freedom and his family,” Sylvie Godard wrote in the letter, which was dated December 10 and seen by AFP on Monday.
“Nowhere in any of his writings will you find any trace of statements hostile to Algeria and its people,” she wrote in her letter to President Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
