Are there greater international war crimes than invading a country, pledging homicide, committing widespread rape, firing barrages of rockets into civilian towns, infanticide, hostage-taking, using human shields, torture, and murder of prisoners? Hamas and its Gaza affiliates are guilty of all those crimes.
If Hamas can perpetrate such a rap sheet of heinous crimes, why is it so hard for Hamas supporters to believe Hamas can subvert the notion of freedom of the press and produce counterfeit reporters? The purveyors of lies hide the truth and use their microphones and cameras to cudgel the uninformed.
So, add one more crime to Hamas’s sins: fighting out of uniform. They dress as civilians and blend in with the civilian population. Pretending to be a civilian to kill or ambush (“perfidy”) is regarded as a war crime. The perpetrators forfeit prisoner-of-war protections.
Hamas Uniforms
Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters rarely wear uniforms. At best, they wear a headband, which some consider a sufficient sign of identification under international law.
On October 7, 2023, many of the invaders of Israel wore civilian garb, and there were no signs of affiliation.
[Author’s note: On some occasions, the identification by headband is helpful to analysts: the pallbearers of the murdered Bibas children were representatives of a coalition of major Palestinian terror groups – Hamas (green), Fatah (yellow), Islamic Jihad (black), and PFLP (red).]
The Press’s Special Forces
Under penalty of death, no reporter or photographer in Gaza today can file an accurate report on Hamas human rights violations or casualties. Not one. Fealty to Hamas is total and written in blood.
While Western critics of Israel decry the ban on foreign reporters entering Gaza, it is a fact that no honest reporter would accept Hamas’s draconian diktats. Instead, Western editors in London and New York rely on their Gaza reporters and fixers who report what Hamas tells them to or lie about what they cannot. The Gazan writers undoubtedly know about the summary executions of Gazans, the real destinations of food supplies, the Hamas weapons under schools, the terrorist headquarters under hospitals, and the corruption of Hamas’s leaders. But they must take those Hamas secrets to the grave – later, rather than sooner.
Al Jazeera’s Blinded Eye on Gaza – Anas al-Sharif
Al Jazeera’s 28-year-old Anas al-Sharif was “the face and voice of Gaza,” eulogized the New York Times columnist Lydia Polgreen on August 21. He was “assassinated” because “Israel is making sure there is no one to document the horror of its war,” she claimed. Polgreen went on to accuse Israel of having no “credible evidence” that he was a part of a Hamas terror cell.
She dismisses the piles of Hamas records showing al-Sharif as a member and fighter. Moreover, she dismisses Hamas as exclusively a terrorist organization: “It ran the entire state apparatus of a tiny enclave.”
Lastly, Polgreen ignores the incriminating evidence of al-Sharif being embedded in Hamas’s elite Shadow Unit at the time of the release of Israeli hostage Agam Berger on January 30, 2025, after 482 days. He was the only “civilian” among a squad of Hamas’s best fighters. [Look for his green jacket.]
Polgreen joins a brigade of reporters who canonize dead Al-Jazeera journalists like al-Sharif and Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed in May 2022.
No one ever insinuated that Abu Akleh was a Hamas member, but minutes before her death, she had been viewing a 16-minute video of Israeli vehicles in Jenin with Salim Awad, a “spotter” for Jenin fighters. He had just transmitted his video. He was a legitimate target for the IDF soldiers who he threatened. Unfortunately, he was not hit.
Hamas’ Use of Human Shields Is a Win-Win
Capitalizing on the death of American-Palestinian reporter Shireen Abu Akleh, Palestinian terrorists also used teenage girls in Jenin as “spotters.” At least two were killed while they were transmitting IDF locations. One was cherubic, 14-year-old Sadil Neghnaghieh, who died in June 2023 while recording IDF vehicles on her phone. There was little doubt of Sadil’s affiliation with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group. They gave the girl a full military funeral in a mosque with PIJ shrouds and even an M-16 resting on her body. But for Sadil’s burial, her wardrobe radically changed.
Before Sadil’s body arrived at the cemetery and the waiting press corps, her shrouds were replaced with a schoolgirl’s uniform to conform to the innocent image PIJ wanted to convey.
Would an Al Jazeera editor ever question the buddy-buddy relationship between his key reporter and the homicidal leader of Hamas? Of course not. But why would Western journalists mourn over such a Hamas counterfeit journalist?
Asked if he would trust Gazan fixers today, a respected Arab reporter who reported on Gaza for decades, told me, “Never.” He continued, “They will report what Hamas wants them to write; photograph the pictures Hamas seeks. They cannot write or film anything that will hurt Hamas’ image. But I don’t blame the fixers,” he continued. “I blame the news producers sitting in London or New York assigning stories when they know the fixers’ restrictions.”
An End of the “Invulnerability Cloak-Vest”
The Gaza Press Corps is one of Hamas’s most important units. (The etymology of “corps” suggests a military formation, such as the Marine Corps.) They report the casualty figures or starvation numbers given to them by the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health. Suppose Hamas seeks an international campaign claiming Israel starves babies. In that case, the Gazan press and photographers are quick to find ravaged sufferers of congenital diseases to present as hungry victims, and the New York Times is just as fast to print the pictures on its front page.
On April 6, 2018, drone photographer Yasser Murtaja was shot and killed by an IDF sniper during rioting at the Gaza fence. He wore a “PRESS” vest, and the international press protested loudly. The drone picture below was taken by Murtaja and appeared in the New York Times. Its utility for Hamas intelligence is evident and explains why Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh paid an unusual tribute to him at Murtaja’s funeral. Israeli intelligence sources reported that Yasser Murtaja was a captain in Hamas’ intelligence forces.
A protest in Khan Younis on March 30, 2018. The photographer, Yasser Murtaja, showed Israeli positions and the status of the clashes. He was killed in a protest in the exact location the following week.
Soliman Hijjy is a cinematographer and aerial photographer living in Gaza who works for the New York Times. He started drone filming during the 2014 Gaza war and the 2018 “Great March of Return” and provided an eagle-eye view of the front, including Israeli military positions.
The New York Times’ Soliman Hijjy. Already on October 8, 2023, Hijjy was providing videos of Gaza-bombed buildings to the Times. Today, he focuses on “starving” children.
Like Yasser Murtaja, Hijjy also took drone photographs of the “front.” The New York Times was criticized for employing Hijjy after Honest Report uncovered his 2012 Facebook post praising Adolf Hitler. The Times reported in 2023, “in 2022 it had discussed this and other ‘problematic’ social media posts with Mr. Hijjy, and that he had pledged to adhere to the paper’s standards. The Times said he had done so, delivering ‘important and impartial work at great personal risk in Gaza during this conflict.’”
Today, Hijjy is back with the New York Times, reporting on the “famine” in Gaza and filming crying and smirking children as in this video.
