The Israel Defense Forces on Sunday eliminated Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists in the Nuseirat Camp in central Gaza, among them a PIJ terrorist who was employed as an Al Jazeera cameraman.
Identified as Ahmad Baker al-Louh, the IDF and the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) said in a joint statement that he had “previously served as a platoon commander in the Islamic Jihad’s Central Camps Brigade.”
Al-Louh was operating among other terrorists in a command and control center embedded in the offices of Gaza’s Hamas-run “Civil Defense” organization in Nuseirat, the statement read.
This command center “was used by the terrorists to plan and carry out an imminent terror attack against IDF troops,” the IDF added.
All those present in the command center were killed in the drone strike, according to Hebrew media reports.
“Numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, precise aerial surveillance and additional intelligence,” the IDF and Shin Bet said.
The Qatari-funded Al Jazeera network accused Israel of “brutally” killing al-Louh “in an airstrike that targeted a civil defense post in the market area.”
It went on to condemn “in the strongest terms the killing of its cameraman, Ahmad Baker Al-Louh, 39, by the Israeli occupation forces.”
Moreover on Sunday, the IDF killed and arrested Palestinian terrorists in three separate operations in the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli Air Force fired at Hamas operatives in a command and control center within a compound that previously served as an UNRWA school in the Khan Yunis humanitarian zone, the IDF said.
In the Beit Hanoun area, Israeli security forces raided a terrorist meeting, and with IAF assistance struck dozens of terrorists from the air and ground, apprehending several among them, according to the IDF.
In Beit Layiheh, “IDF troops eliminated terrorists and located and dismantled large quantities of weapons, including explosives and dozens of grenades,” according to the military.
On Saturday, a terrorist cell planning imminent attacks against Israeli forces was struck by the IAF in three different locations in Gaza City, the IDF stated.
Al Jazeera’s collaboration with Palestinian terrorist elements has been well documented in the past.
On Oct. 25, the IDF disclosed documents exposing six Al Jazeera journalists as Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists. Just days later, it revealed additional documents exposing the close collaboration between Hamas and the Qatari news organization.
“The documents reveal how Hamas directs Al Jazeera‘s media coverage to serve its own interests, preventing the public in Gaza and around the world from discovering the truth about its crimes against Gazan civilians,” the IDF said at the time.
Cooperation ranged from prohibiting the channel from criticizing Hamas to concealing incidents involving failed rocket launches.
On Sept. 12, Israel announced it would revoke the press passes of Al Jazeera reporters working in the Jewish state, some four months after Israel’s Cabinet voted unanimously to close down the operations of the broadcaster, which Jerusalem has accused of aiding Hamas.