How Palestinian terrorists train ‘journalists’ in Gaza

In November 2012, in Gaza City, officials from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine welcomed an “elite group of young women and men” to celebrate them passing a course on “journalistic investigation, photojournalism, the art of public speaking, and new media.” At the ceremony, according to the PFLP, attendees stood for a moment of silence “to mourn the souls of the martyrs.”

They were handed certificates and “shields of appreciation” from Gaza Bureau Chief Wael al Dahdouh of the Qatari-backed Al Jazeera website, the PFLP said of the Nov. 8 event. One person in attendance, the U.S.-designated terrorist faction said, was Samar Abu Elouf — a freelance photographer for the New York Times.

As the war continues in the Middle East between Israel and Iranian-backed terrorist organizations, including Hamas, the role of media covering the conflict, and in some cases being linked to it, has come front and center. Over the weekend, Israeli authorities said three hostages were held captive in the home of Abdallah Aljamal, who wrote articles for Al Jazeera and Palestine Chronicle, a website based in the U.S. that is linked to the murderous regime in Iran. Aljamal was killed on June 8 by the Israeli military as it rescued the hostages. Some Gaza-based freelancers, according to reports, appear to have been embedded with Hamas as it attacked Israel on Oct. 7 of last year. And outlets in the U.S., including CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, continue to come under sharp scrutiny for coverage that critics say shows anti-Israel bias and carries water for terrorists — including by taking the word of Hamas on fatality statistics.

But Palestinian terrorist factions have also long worked to develop their own infrastructure to train media in Gaza. For many years, they’ve touted how they helped lead and organize “reporting” courses in Gaza, a fact that comes as no surprise to media analyst Eitan Fischberger.

“Media manipulation is a crucial part of the terror groups’ propaganda war against Israel,” said Fischberger, who is based in Jerusalem and recently helped unearth viral information about Aljamal, who was a Hamas spokesman. “And what better way to manipulate public opinion than to become the media itself?”

For instance, at a 2017 “TV editing course,” Hamas hosted “10 regional media professionals and specialists in television arts and media works” alongside A. Ibrahim Saima in Gaza from the Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV.

In 2015, Hamas ran a course called “Skills for Drafting Press Reports” for 25 Palestinian reporters and students. The lecturers were a “distinguished media team that included three of the most prominent media professionals working in a number of print, electronic, and audio media outlets in Gaza.” In 2015, the Hamas media office similarly touted in Palestinian media how it held a training course for “female media professionals” to learn “how to deal with the media and the rules of news coverage.”

More recent Hamas-linked trainings have taken place thanks to the Palestinian Media Forum, a Gaza-based group founded in 2007, records show. Imad Al-Efranji, the forum’s first chairman, was recently head of Al-Aqsa TV.

In January 2023, the Palestinian Media Forum organized a symposium in Gaza titled “Optimal Media Dealing with the Fascist, Racist Occupation Government” of Israel. Hossam Shaker, a journalist who has written for the British-owned website Middle East Monitor, spoke at the event. He was joined by Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem.

In December 2022, the forum posted on Facebook about a press event it hosted featuring Mahmoud Mardawi, a Hamas spokesman.

Mardawi, speaking to a group of virtual participants, emphasized how Palestinians are “ready to fight” for Jerusalem. Other participants in prior events hosted by the forum have included Hamas officials Khalil al-Hayya, Salah Aldwell, Mahmoud Zahar, and leaders from the PFLP and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

In 2018, the International Committee of the Red Cross, which receives funding from the U.S. and other countries, hosted an event with the forum, according to a Palestinian news report. Al Jazeera participated in one 2013 event with the forum featuring senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad, according to a press release by Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, a Hamas-linked group funded by left-wing philanthropist George Soros.

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To Fischberger, Hamas has remained committed to meticulously cultivating “journalists” from the early stages of their careers so they can advance the image of the terrorists. It’s a strategy, he said, “that extends even to those who may later be employed by Western media outlets.”

“We’ve seen numerous instances since the war began where Gaza-based journalists echoed Hamas talking points that later proved false. These include the infamous October explosion at al-Ahli Hospital, caused by a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket, and the alleged ‘mass rapes’ by the Israel Defense forces at al-Shifa Hospital — a claim so absurd that Hamas eventually backpedaled on it,” Fischberger said.