If you are going to kill someone famous, be prepared to justify your actions.

On July 31, an Israeli airstrike killed Al Jazeera reporter Ismail al-Ghoul along with his cameraman and a 17-year-old bystander. The strike came in broad daylight, and footage of al-Ghoul’s decapitated body began to circulate on social media. A wave of stories reported the death of another journalist in Gaza. The Israeli military had no comment.

The next day, the IDF released a statement on social media asserting that Ghoul was a Hamas military operative and part of the Nukhba force that carried out the October 7 massacre.

Surging global media coverage took note of the Israeli statement, but its emphasis remained on the tragic death of a young reporter who left behind a widow and one-year-old daughter. After two additional days, the IDF returned to social media, posting an image of a captured Hamas spreadsheet from 2021 that identified Ghoul as an operative, along with his rank, specialty, and official ID numbers. But the news cycle had moved on.

If the story ended there, the lesson would be straightforward: The IDF should have a dossier of declassified intelligence ready to publicize the moment it strikes a Hamas terrorist with a high-profile civilian day job.

Yet in the case of Ismail al-Ghoul, it is not classified documents, but his own social media posts that provide much of the relevant information about his attachment to Hamas.

The journalists who covered Ghoul’s demise clearly did not conduct basic due diligence. Yet the IDF shares responsibility; Israeli intelligence should pay close attention to its targets’ social media activity.

The first clue that Ghoul’s social media deserved closer scrutiny was his decision to open a series of new accounts — and delete or suspend the old ones — shortly after he began working for Al Jazeera during the first weeks of the fighting in Gaza. He created a new Instagram account in November, as well as a new Telegram channel. Next came a new Facebook page in December, and a second new page in January. That same month, he launched two new X accounts and one on TikTok. In February, he launched another Telegram channel.

The names of these new accounts incorporated some version of Ghoul’s name along with the number two, suggesting they were successors to an earlier account.

For example, he chose “ismail_gh2” as the handle for both his Instagram account and one of the two on X. The former now has more than 650,000 followers, while the latter has more than 100,000. One of the two Facebook pages has another half million followers while more than 45,000 users follow him on Telegram. If nothing else, this should have made it clear to the IDF that they were dealing with a target whose death could have a major political impact.

Although Ghoul disabled his original account on X, most of its contents remain available thanks to the Internet Archive.

Eitan Fischberger, an Israel army veteran turned media analyst, examined Ghoul’s posts in March. In a post from April 2020, the second month of the Covid-19 pandemic, Ghoul opined that the real disease is “the Israeli entity and every Arab trying to normalize it,” adding the hashtag #COVID48, a reference to the year of Israel’s founding.

In July of that year, Ghoul tweeted a graphic celebrating young Palestinians’ use of “alternative tools” against Israelis: knives, axes, rocks, and Molotov cocktails.

Yet the most important piece of information to glean from Ghoul’s old X account is the fact that he previously worked for two other media outlets — Felesteen and al-Resalah — both aligned with Hamas.

Felesteen debuted in May 2007, becoming Palestinians’ fifth daily newspaper. Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader recently assassinated in Iran, spoke at a pre-launch reception for Felesteen. An interview with Haniyeh was the centerpiece of its first edition. The Associated Press, which covered the publication’s debut, described it as “a 24-page newspaper catering largely to Hamas supporters and seen as an attempt by the Islamic militant group to increase its influence.”

The precise nature of Ghoul’s work at Felesteen and al-Resalah is not clear; his name does not appear on old bylines. Yet both publications lionize Hamas.

In a brief article on August 7, 2024, al-Resalah reported the selection of Yahya Sinwar as Hamas’ new leader while noting the “brave, wise, and open-minded leadership” of Ismail Haniyeh, Sinwar’s late predecessor. During his time at al-Resalah, Ghoul said an Israeli soldier shot him, injuring his hand with shrapnel, while he was covering protests at the Gaza-Israel border in 2018.

Despite Ghoul’s reinvention of his social media presence during the current war, he chose to leave intact his personal Facebook profile, which remains public. The clearest indication of his disposition toward Hamas is a photo he posted in 2021, showing Yahya Sinwar sitting defiantly in the ruins of his Gaza home.

Ghoul said of Sinwar, “May Allah protect you.” Ghoul also left no doubt that he celebrated violence. In September 2023, he reposted another well-known image, this one of Palestinian teenager Basel al-Shawamrah, who stabbed two Israelis outside the Jerusalem Central Bus station. A photographer captured Shawamra grinning contentedly while lying on a stretcher after he was shot. Ghoul captioned the photo “The Smile of Victory.” On numerous occasions, Ghoul shared photos of rocket fire from Gaza, calling the rockets “the pride of local industry.”

According to the IDF, two of Ghoul’s cousins were also Hamas operatives. In February, the IDF announced the death of Ahmed al-Ghoul, commander of the Shati Battalion, “who participated in the massacre on October 7” and later held one of the Israeli hostages, Cpl. Noa Marciano, whose remains were later found near al-Shifa hospital.

In May, a second announcement reported the death of Naim al-Ghoul, a fighter in the Shati Battalion, who also held Marciano before her death. Ismail al-Ghoul posted photos of himself at his cousin’s funeral, shovel in hand, wearing a blue flak jacket displaying the English word “PRESS” in large capital letters. Ghoul described his cousin as “a man of humanity who continued to perform his humanitarian duty sincerely.”

One source of support Ghoul could rely on was his wife, who posted many verses in honor of Hamas’ military wing, the Qassam Brigades.

During the clash the IDF calls Operation Protective Edge, she wrote to the Qassam fighters, “May God protect you, make you steadfast and be with you.” Above a photo of a Palestinian fighter she posted, “Fire your guns, don’t be merciful.” Her timeline also includes commemorations of fighters such as Yahya Ayyash, the bombmaker who equipped many suicide operatives in the 1990s.

She also denounced Palestinians who reject Hamas as agents of the Jews. Above a photo of Jews dancing in Jerusalem on the anniversary of the IDF’s reclaiming the city in 1967, Ghoul’s wife lamented, “Is there a more hideous sight than this?”

None of this material on Facebook amounts to evidence that Ghoul was a Hamas military operative. Nor do expressions of support for Hamas, nor even justifications of its violence, render Ghoul a legitimate military target. Yet they show he was an extremist and belie the post-mortem claims by Al Jazeera that Ghoul was a model journalist. The network’s managing editor, Mohamed Moawad, wrote, “Ismail was renowned for his professionalism and dedication, bringing the world’s attention to the suffering and atrocities committed in Gaza.”

Did the network know of Ghoul’s support for Hamas when it hired him? His previous work on behalf of Felesteen and al-Resalah would have made his affinity obvious. A review of Ghoul’s social media would not have required much effort. Had the IDF prepared a suitable dossier with selections from Ghoul’s postings, it might have turned the tables on Al Jazeera, pushing Western journalists to press the network for answers. Instead, Western media uncritically reprinted testimonials to Ghoul from admiring colleagues.

While the news cycle has passed, the IDF should nevertheless commit the manpower necessary to produce a full dossier on Ghoul, including both declassified intelligence and publicly available material. There is a tendency for past incidents to become the subject of intense re-litigation. In January, an Israeli airstrike killed two of Ghoul’s colleagues at Al Jazeera, Hamza Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuraya. Three days later, the IDF released a screenshot of what it said was a personnel roster from Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a Hamas partner, showing that Dahdouh belonged to an electronic engineering unit. Two months later, The Washington Post published a detailed investigation asserting the innocence of Dahdouh and Thuraya, while casting doubt on the document shared by the IDF. In response to inquiries from the Post, the IDF simply responded, “We have nothing to add.”

While the IDF may question the fairness of the Post’s coverage, its non-response amounts to unilateral disarmament. When the re-litigation of Ghoul’s death begins, the IDF should be better prepared. For instance, it should be able to demonstrate the authenticity of the spreadsheet listing Ghoul as a Hamas operative. On its own, the document has shortcomings. For example, there is a column that lists the “Date of military rank” for each of the individuals listed. Yet in the case of Ghoul and many others, this date precedes the “Date of recruitment” by several years.

Other parts of the document hold up better under scrutiny. One column provides a nine-digit ID for each individual. All of these have the correct format for the numbers that the Israeli Ministry of the Interior assigns to Palestinians. Five of the 33 names in the document also appear on the Gaza Health Ministry’s list of the dead. Of those, two reportedly died on October 7, according to a Palestinian NGO that tracks fatalities.

Four of the names on the spreadsheet belong to individuals that Ghoul’s Facebook account lists as friends. One is Samer Balawi, who has not posted on Facebook since May, yet his final post shows him standing side by side with Ghoul, both smiling. It reveals little about their relationship, but underscores the importance of synthesizing information from open source and classified materials.

While the IDF may have lost the battle with Al Jazeera that followed Ghoul’s death, the battle is not the war. The question is whether the IDF will learn from this setback and be better prepared for the next round.

David Adesnik is a senior fellow and director of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies

The post How Israel Lost a Battle to Al Jazeera — and How It Must Do Better Next Time first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

When Holocaust denier Gilad Atzmon wrote a book about the evils of Jewishness, it was well–received by the white supremacist community.

For the book’s main promotional blurb, however the author turned to a more credentialed — and less expected — source.

From the front of the book’s dust jacket, the United Nations “Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967” announced that Atzmon’s antisemitic screed was a must-read.

The rapporteur, Richard Falk, also praised Atzmon’s “unflinching integrity” — just as Atzmon has lauded Holocaust denier David Irving’s integrity, or how David Irving in turn has gushed over the “great man” Adolf Hitler.

Falk’s endorsement appeared in 2011, the same year he published a cartoon of a bloodthirsty dog wearing a kippah (Jewish head covering), and the same year that he promoted 9/11 conspiracy theories. His UN mandate has since expired. But the same process that put one extremist in the role elevated another in his place — because Francesca Albanese is the new Richard Falk.

Although Special Rapporteur Albanese may not have endorsed Gilad Atzmon’s book, she certainly doesn’t find such endorsements problematic. For example, she hosted, praised, and promoted an event at which Falk was a speaker. Worse, it was an event that purported to teach what is, and what is not, antisemitic. Worse yet, Falk was there as an expert, not an exhibit.

And if one might forgive Albanese for boosting other Holocaust deniers on Twitter, her own words about Jews and their nefarious power can’t be brushed aside. Her slur that the US is “subjugated by the Jewish lobby,” for example, would fit seamlessly in Atzmon’s book.

Such a worldview is concerning on its own. But for someone whose mandate is to pass judgement on the world’s one Jewish-majority country, it should be disqualifying.

Unfortunately, Albanese will keep passing her judgements with the United Nations’ imprimatur. After all, contrary to the idyllic views of the organization that still, somehow, persist, this is the UN in which Richard Falk was able to serve out his full term.

It is the UN whose Human Rights Council — the body that appoints rapporteurs — currently includes Cuba, China, Qatar, Sudan, Eritrea, Burundi, Algeria, Somalia, Vietnam, and other such “paragons” of human rights.

So we can expect more of the same. And what is the same? Albanese often reaches for the bluntest tools in the chest — her endless charges of “apartheid” and “genocide.”

To punctuate the latter, she also dabbles in Holocaust inversion — casting Jews as the new Nazis, a slur understood to minimize the crimes of the latter while spitting in the face of the former.

In July, for example, Albanese endorsed a social media post that compared Israel’s prime minister to Adolf Hitler. Not long before that, while promoting a video by an activist who argues that Hamas’s Oct. 7 slaughter is cause to “celebrate,” she again used the Holocaust as a prop to compare analogize the Jewish State with the murderers of Jews.

But in a world where young people are increasingly clueless about what the Holocaust was, it may be more useful to look at Albanese’s more precise affronts, especially (but not limited to) her comments related to the massacre of October 7.

Equivocating About What Happened on Oct 7

Albanese fanned the flames of conspiracism during an interview in which she was asked about the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks. After flatly saying Hamas targeted civilians in the attack, the UN rapporteur immediately checked herself, gesturing defensively while backtracking:

The problem is that they targeted civilians. They– uh– as n– I mean, as far as what we hear in the media is true, because this is the thing, I mean, this is– it’s very difficult to also understand, to have clarity, on what has happened. But let’s assume that what they say in the media is true.

Her flirtation with denialism wasn’t the morning of the attacks, when some uncertainty might have been forgivable. It was in December. There was no doubt at the time about “what happened.”

Unequivocal in Spreading Ahli Hospital Misinformation

By contrast, long after it was understood that a misfired Palestinian rocket likely caused the Oct. 17 blast in the parking lot of Gaza’s al-Ahli Hospital, Albanese pushed the claim that Israel was responsible.

The day after the incident, and after President Joe Biden, independent analysts, and Israeli officials had already pointed the finger at a Palestinian rocket (see, for example, early assessments here, here, here, here, here, here, and here), Albanese described the incident as an “atrocity crime” and retweeted the false claim that it was an “Israeli airstrike.”

She and other rapporteurs continued to misrepresent the incident on Oct. 19.

Subsequent reports by the United States, United Kingdom, France, Italy, the Associated Press, CNN, Wall Street Journal, other news organizations, and even anti-Israel NGOs, corroborated the early reports of Palestinian responsibility.

Double Standards to Defend Hamas Rapists

Shortly after the Oct. 7 massacre, Albanese and a fellow rapporteur insisted that accounts of Palestinian rape against Israelis should not be spread, protesting that “unverified” information would only “escalate tensions.”

Apparently this criteria uniquely applies to sexual violence against Israelis, because a few months later — on the very day a Palestinian claim of rape was disproven and withdrawn — the rapporteurs did the very thing they had decried, and spread unverified claims about the rape of Palestinians. (And, as noted above, the rapporteurs felt free to escalate tensions by rushing to peddle false claims about the al-Ahli hospital.)

Misinformation to Defend Oct 7th Attackers

According to Albanese, Israel lied when charging that some UN employees participated in the Oct. 7 attack. These are “fallacious allegations,” she said.

But it was she who trafficked in misinformation. The UN Office of Internal Oversight Services eventually investigated, reviewed Israel’s evidence, and conceded that nine UNRWA employees may have indeed been involved in the attacks. The number reported by the IDF and other analysts is far higher.

Denying Hamas’s Antisemitism, Deflecting from Its Responsibility

Albanese has argued that the Oct. 7 slaughter by Hamas, a transparently antisemitic organization, wasn’t related to antisemitism, but rather was Israel’s fault.

After French president Emmanuel Macron presided over a ceremony in memory of French-Israelis murdered during the Hamas massacre, the rapporteur reacted with outrage.

“The ‘worst anti-Semitic massacre of our century’?” she asked, quoting the French president’s characterization of the Hamas attack. “No, Mr. Emmanuel Macron. The victims of 7/10 were not killed because of their Judaism, but in response to Israel’s oppression.”

This is a two-part exoneration. She first acquits Hamas of antisemitism, and then more fully unburdens them of responsibility.

It should go without saying that blame for the murder, rape, and kidnapping of civilians rests squarely with the murderers who carefully planned their attack. But what about the question of antisemitism?

The group Albanese exculpates is the same group that, in its 1988 founding covenant, declares that their “struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious.”

The document later reiterates: “Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Muslim people.” For the next three decades, Hamas unabashedly reemphasized this core philosophy.

And though the group has more recently gone through the motions of rebranding itself, its leaders have made clear that they remain motivated by Jew-hatred.

In 2019, for example, Hamas Parliamentarian Marwan Abu Ras, using the same logic as Albanese, insisted Hitler’s hatred of Jews should be viewed as a response to Jewish “deeds and crimes.” (Ras at least didn’t blame Hitler’s genocide on Jews, but only because in his view the Holocaust was “lie.”)

In 2018, senior Hamas official Mahmoud Zahar charged Jews with corrupting and betraying the societies in which they lived throughout history. That same year, Hamas’ Al-Aqsa TV broadcast the charge that the Jews are “human garbage” who are behind every world conspiracy. (See these and many more examples translated by MEMRI here.)

Hamas’s antisemitic worldview naturally extends to the boots on the ground on Oct. 7. Just ask the man who murdered ten Jews, then elatedly called home to brag about it: “Look how many I killed with my own hands!” he told his father. “Your son killed Jews!”

Or ask Bedouin Muslim Farhan al-Qadi, a rescued hostage who shared that his attackers demanded he “Take us in your car to wherever we can find Jews.” (He heroically refused, and was abused for it, al-Qadi explained.)

Misrepresenting Casualty Claims

Albanese claims that The Lancet counted 186,000 direct and indirect deaths in the Gaza war. It did not.

First, the figure was not peer-reviewed research. It appeared in the magazine’s correspondence section. (That this section isn’t peer reviewed is one of the kinder things that could be said about it.)

Second, the letter itself makes clear that the figure comes from a primitive and rather arbitrary formula — the writers simply multiplied Hamas’ casualty figure by four — and that it hardly represents a finding of fact. It is “not implausible” for one to “estimate” that “up to” 186,000 or more deaths “could be” attributable to the conflict, the authors say. No wonder one of the authors later reemphasized that the figure is “purely illustrative.”

We need not get into the many additional serious problems with the letter. With or without them, Albanese, who ridiculously treats the figure as fact, spreads misinformation.

Misinformation on Hostage Rescue

After Israel found and extracted four of the many hostages held by Hamas, the UN rapporteur bizarrely referred to the hostages as having been “released” rather than rescued; she relayed discredited allegations that “foreign soldiers” took part in the fighting during the hostage rescue; and she endorsed questionable claims that the soldiers were hidden in an “aid truck.”

Most absurdly, she insisted that the military operation, which had an obvious and narrow military goal — to rescue hostages –somehow proves “genocidal intent,” or in other words, was aimed at no less than destroying the Palestinian people.

Casting Murdered Israeli Civilians as Soldiers

Albanese’s disinformation extends beyond the October 7 attack. She recently erased the crimes of Nasser Abu Hamid, a senior terrorist convicted in the murder of six Israeli civilians and a police officer, by falsely describing him as having been sentenced for “alleged involvement in attacks against Israeli forces.”

Civilians, of course, are not Israeli “forces,” nor are convictions “allegations.”

Gilead Ini is a Senior Research Analyst at CAMERA, the foremost media watchdog organization focused on coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The post Francesca Albanese: A UN Rapporteur Without Principles first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told his US counterpart on Monday that time was running out for reaching a diplomatic solution to ongoing clashes between Israel and the Iran-backed terrorist organization Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

“The possibility of a settlement in the north is passing,” Gallant told US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in a phone call, according to a statement from his office. “Hezbollah continues to tie itself to Hamas — the direction is clear.”

The Defense Ministry’s statement on the call did not include quotes by Austin, and the US Department of Defense did not immediately provide a readout of the conversation.

Hezbollah has pummeled northern Israeli communities almost daily with barrages of drones, rockets, and missiles from southern Lebanon, where it wields significant political and military influence, since the start of the Gaza war between Israel and Hamas — another Iran-backed terrorist group — in October.

About 80,000 Israelis have been forced to evacuate Israel’s north during that time due to the unrelenting attacks. Most of them have spent the past 11 months living displaced in hotels in other areas of the country.

Israeli leaders have said they seek a diplomatic resolution to the conflict with Hezbollah along the border with Lebanon but are prepared to use large-scale military force if needed to ensure all displaced citizens can safely return to their homes.

The head of the Israeli army’s northern command has recommended a rapid border operation to create a buffer zone in southern Lebanon, according to Israeli media reports.

Earlier this month, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), said the Jewish state is “very focused” on waging combat with Hezbollah and preparing for offensive actions against the powerful Iran-backed group in neighboring Lebanon.

Gallant’s latest remarks came as White House Special envoy Amos Hochstein visited Israel to discuss the crisis on the northern border.

“We are trying to prevent the opening of a second front in northern Israel,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said ahead of the visit.

Hochstein is reportedly expected to propose a slight redrawing of the map along the Israel-Lebanon border. His visit followed Hezbollah firing dozens of rockets into Israel on Sunday and more rockets on Monday. Israel responded to both barrages by striking terrorist targets in southern Lebanon.

The Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) said earlier this month that August was the most intense month in the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah so far, with more than 1,300 attacks on the Jewish state recorded.

One of the biggest clashes occurred about three weeks ago, when Israeli fighter jets destroyed thousands of drones and rocket launchers belonging to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, after detecting an imminent attack on the Jewish state.

Hezbollah, which is Iran’s chief proxy force in the Middle East, subsequently fired some 300 projectiles into Israel.

Several reports have confirmed Israeli claims that Hezbollah was preparing to target Israel with a major barrage. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah stated that the terrorist group carried out its strikes in retaliation for the killing of Fuad Shukr, a senior Hezbollah commander, in an airstrike in Beirut, Lebanon late last month. Israel claimed responsibility for Shukr’s death.

Israel has been increasingly directing its military focus northward to Hezbollah in Lebanon as it has decimated the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s operational capabilities from Gaza to the south. Like Hezbollah, Hamas also receives significant military and financial support from Iran.

Gallant’s call with Austin came amid reports in Israel suggesting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may be set to replace Gallant over disagreements on Lebanon.

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