A Hamas military operative masquerading as an Al Jazeera photojournalist died in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza this weekend, according to the Israel Defense Forces. It’s the latest example of a jihadist militant operating under the guise of a journalist in Gaza.
The IDF announced the death of Ahmed Samir Muhammad Washah on Saturday, saying he was “a Hamas terrorist who posed a threat and served as an Al Jazeera Photojournalist.”
Washah, a 25-year old Gaza resident, was killed during a “precise strike in the central Gaza Strip” that also killed two other Hamas operatives. Washah, the IDF revealed, “advanced sniper attack plans and additional terrorist activities against IDF troops operating in the Gaza Strip.”
Washah’s brother, fellow Al Jazeera journalist Muhammad Samir Muhammad Washah, was killed several weeks ago in a similar IDF attack targeting Hamas operatives inside Gaza. Washah’s late brother acted as “a key terrorist in Hamas’ rocket and weapons production headquarters,” the IDF said. The Washah brothers join around a dozen or so Al Jazeera reporters and photojournalists who have been killed by the IDF for working alongside terror groups like Hamas and its Palestinian Islamic Jihad counterpart. Israel has provided extensive evidence since Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack that scores of supposed journalists in Gaza are actually terrorist operatives, including at least half a dozen Al Jazeera employees and more than 150 others.
Al Jazeera, which is controlled by the rulers of Qatar, has long been cozy with terrorists, serving as a repository for al Qaeda hostage and beheading videos during the second Gulf war and using its unrivaled platform to fan anti-Israel sentiment across the Arab world for 30 years. Despite Israel repeatedly offering documentary proof that Al Jazeera employees are moonlighting as militants, or vice versa, Al Jazeera has persistently denied harboring terrorists and condemned Israel for targeting journalists whose reporting disagrees with it.
The Washington Free Beacon first reported in late May that the Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based advocacy group that accuses Israel of intentionally targeting reporters, quietly removed multiple terrorists’ names from its widely cited list of journalists killed in Gaza. At least six names that the CPJ deleted without mention include a member of “Hamas’ Jabalia Battalion,” “a terror combatant for Islamic Jihad,” “a commander in the Nasser Salah Al-Din Brigades,” and three other known jihadist militants.
Al Jazeera, meanwhile, published a glowing obituary for Washah that omitted any mention of his Hamas membership and accused Israel of intentionally killing a working journalist. Washah, the state-run outlet wrote, “was killed on Saturday, weeks after his brother Mohammed, who also worked for the Doha-based network, was killed in deliberate Israeli shelling of his car.”
Washah “worked as a cameraman for Al Jazeera Mubasher,” the obituary said, noting that he “gained prominence during the Gaza war by accompanying and filming footage for his late brother, an Al Jazeera Mubasher correspondent killed on April 8. Together, they formed a media duo that documented the suffering of the Palestinian people and the unfolding events of the war.” Al Jazeera claimed Washah is “the 12th Al Jazeera journalist killed by Israel in Gaza since October 2023.”
In an interview shortly after his brother was killed, Washah hailed his “martyrdom.”
“Let the martyrdom of Mohammed Wishah be the end to the killing of journalists. This is my message to the world. Someone should stop the occupation from targeting journalists,” he said. “That’s our only message: Stop the Israeli occupation from targeting journalists.”
Israel’s defensive operations in Gaza intensified over the weekend with a strike on multiple Hamas targets in Gaza.
An airstrike in northern Gaza, for instance, killed Sabai Zaher Abd al-Hamid Abu Hasna, a Nukhba commando in Hamas’s military wing who entered Israel on Oct. 7 and held captive the Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov (who was ultimately released after 505 days underground). “Throughout the war,” the IDF said, Abu Hasna “planted explosives” and “attempted to advance terror attacks against IDF troops recently.” That strike also killed Washah, providing further evidence he was working with known Hamas operatives.
A second strike on Saturday, also in northern Gaza, “eliminated three armed terrorists from Hamas’ military wing who were attempting to advance attacks against IDF troops,” the military confirmed. Two other Saturday strikes took out Ahmad Munir Khalil Zaza, “the engineering officer of Hamas West Jabalia Battalion in Gaza City,” and Hussein Safadi, “the commander of Hamas’s sniper array in Gaza City.”
Late Friday, the IDF confirmed that it killed Hamas Nukhba commander Zaki Youssef Mahmoud Abu Mustafa, who infiltrated Israel on Oct. 7 and abducted 12-year-old Yagil Yaakov, who spent 52 days in Hamas captivity. In recent months, Mustafa “played a significant role in rebuilding the terrorist organization’s military capabilities in the Gaza Strip,” according to the IDF, operations that include “training for terrorists at Nasser Hospital.”
The IDF further reported that it has seized more than 240 firearms since the beginning of 2026 across locations in the West Bank, which Israel believes continues to pose a threat. The IDF “located a lathe used to manufacture weapons in the center of a civilian building” in Nablus earlier this year. “These findings,” the IDF said, “provide further evidence of attempts by terrorist groups to establish themselves within civilian areas and exploit civilian infrastructure for terrorist purposes.”
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