Two “journalists” who were killed by Israeli military forces in Gaza On January 7 were actually terror operatives, the Israel Defense Forces revealed in a statement Wednesday evening.
“IDF troops detected a hostile drone near Rafah, an immediate threat to nearby soldiers,” the IDF said. “An IAF aircraft was dispatched to target the drone’s operators.
“Subsequently, Palestinian media reported the deaths of journalists Hamza al-Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuria during this strike,” the IDF said.
The Hamas terrorist organization issued a statement claiming “the targeting of martyr journalist Hamza Dahdouh, son of journalist Wael Dahdouh and the martyr journalist Mustafa Thuraya is an act of terrorism and a Zionist war crime, aimed at deterring journalists from conveying the truth and covering the heinous Zionist crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip.”
The “journalists,” however, were in fact both terrorists.
“IDF intelligence has confirmed that both the deceased were members of Gaza-based terrorist organizations actively involved in attacks against IDF forces,” the Israeli military said.
Prior to the strike that killed them both, “the two operated drones, posing an imminent threat to IDF troops,” the IDF said.
“Mustafa Thuria, identified in a document found by IDF troops in Gaza, was a member of Hamas’ Gaza City Brigade, serving as Squad Deputy Commander in the al-Qadisiyyah Battalion.
“Hamza Wael al-Dahdouh is an Islamic Jihad terrorist and was involved in the organization’s terrorist activities. Documents found by IDF troops in the Gaza Strip reveal his role in the Islamic Jihad’s electronic engineering unit and his previous role as a deputy commander in the Zeitun Battalion’s Rocket Arraym.”
The Jerusalem bureau chief for the Qatar-based Al Jazeera news outlet, Walid Al-Omari, recounted the losses suffered by al-Dahdouh’s father, Wael Dahdouh, also a journalist who was injured on Dec. 15 during an IDF air strike on the Haifa School in Khan Younis where he was allegedly reporting. Dahdouh lost his wife, nephew, son and daughter when his home was targeted in an IDF airstrike on October 25th, but “moments later, he returned to the air, continuing his coverage of the occupation’s crimes once more,” the Resistance News Network reported.
Al-Omari claimed Tuesday (Jan. 9) at a news briefing in Israel with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Wael’s son Hamza “was a journalist in a media network and was killed in an Israeli air strike that hit a civilian car in Rafah.”
And the US Secretary of State was naive enough to buy the lie.
Blinken offered his deep condolences on the losses suffered by of Al-Omari’s colleague, Wael Dahdouh.
“Let me just say again at the outset, the losses that your colleague suffered are unimaginable and I have deep condolences for what he has suffered; I again can’t even begin to fully imagine what he’s gone through,” Blinken said.
“As I said again the other day, the journalists who’ve lost their lives or been injured in Gaza, we feel very strongly for them as well and the essential work that they do is more vital than ever.”
Even as fully accredited members of Gaza’s leading terrorist organizations who are killed while engaged in active combat against Israelis?
