Israel targeted my colleague in an airstrike, claiming that he was a Hamas fighter. Israel is lying.
Hassan Eslayeh in Nasser Hospital after his attempted assassination by the Israeli army, April 2025
Tareq S. Hajjaj writes in Mondoweiss on 9 April 2025:
Last Monday, I saw several colleagues posting on social media that the Israeli army had bombed a journalists’ tent outside Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. The tent caught fire and burned several people alive. A terrifying video emerged showing a journalist named Ahmad Mansour sitting in a chair with his head and chest on fire. People tried to pull him away from the flames, but to no avail, and he later succumbed to his wounds while in the ICU.
Another journalist in the tent was my colleague, Hassan Eslayeh, who I frequently rely upon for updates and gathering testimonies for my Mondoweiss reports. Hassan is usually the first to send me news, video footage, and interviews with people who have witnessed bombings in Gaza. But this time, Hassan was the news — and he was also the direct target of the attack.
The Israeli army declared in a statement on April 7 that the bombing had targeted Hassan, describing him as a “Hamas terrorist” and a part of the organization’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, in Khan Younis. The army stated that Hassan “operates under the guise of a journalist and owns a press company,” but is, in fact, a member of “Hamas’ Khan Yunis Brigade.”
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Anyone with even a passing knowledge of Hamas and how the Qassam Brigades operate will instantly recognize how utterly incoherent the Israeli army’s claims are. But Israel is counting on people’s ignorance and gullibility to believe that a dedicated journalist who operates in the field 24/7 also moonlights as a Hamas fighter.
“The army accused me of fighting in Khan Younis on October 7, but I was covering the events in Rafah,” Hassan said, referring to the moment that the Gaza border fence was torn down on October 7. “I do not belong to any party. I don’t do anything in Gaza other than my well-known journalistic work, which the entire world knows.”