Suit accuses Qatar-backed network of ‘providing substantial assistance’ to Hamas and aims to hold its US office accountable
Al Jazeera has long courted controversy for platforming terrorists across the Middle East, where it is banned from operating in Israel and some Arab countries for promoting extremist ideologies. But the Qatar-funded network’s support for Hamas terrorists isn’t just confined to the region, according to a new lawsuit from October 7 victims, which alleges for the first time that Al Jazeera’s American arm directly supports the terror group’s operations.
American victims of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terror spree sued Al Jazeera and its American affiliate—Al Jazeera International, a limited liability company registered in Delaware—in February. Among the plaintiffs is Maurice Shnaider, whose niece, Shiri Bibas, was kidnapped and killed along with her two small children, Ariel and Kfir.
The victims are petitioning the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to hold Al Jazeera’s American enterprise liable for “providing substantial assistance” to Hamas and its militant ally, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), both of which are U.S.-designated terror outfits. The suit identifies at least a half-dozen Al Jazeera employees who double as Hamas and PIJ operatives and accuses the outlet of conspiring with these terror groups from the lead-up to October 7 until now.
While Al Jazeera is headquartered in Doha, Qatar, where senior Hamas members lived in luxury, it operates 70 bureaus worldwide, including one in Washington, D.C. Its hub in the nation’s capital hosts more than 100 staffers, many of whom are credentialed to cover Congress. The outlet’s presence on Capitol Hill has long driven concerns among GOP lawmakers, who have unsuccessfully tried for years to revoke its privileged status and force it to register as a foreign agent.
Since Hamas is not designated as a terrorist organization in Qatar, the October 7 victims are turning to the American court system, where they can seek financial penalties against Al Jazeera under the Anti-Terrorism Act. By naming Al Jazeera International as a defendant in the case, they are hoping to prove that the network’s Washington, D.C., branch knowingly provided material support to Hamas and PIJ.
“There are far too many coincidences and connections between the Hamas terrorists who attacked innocent Israelis and the reporters from Al Jazeera who mysteriously were amongst the first to breach into the Jewish State from Gaza and accompany the murderers as they killed, maimed and raped innocent Jews,” Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, the lawyer handling the case, told the Washington Free Beacon. “We intend to prove that Al Jazeera is the communication arm of the Gaza terror groups.”
If successful, Darshan-Leitner said, the suit “will financially devastate Al Jazeera and shut down its operations in the United States and beyond.”
The suit points to evidence that the Al Jazeera channels accessible within D.C. promote terrorism. The network’s UpFront program, for instance, has repeatedly aired “terrorist-related content” via Al Jazeera English and other channels owned by the company, most of which are accessible within the district, according to the lawsuit. In other cases, Al Jazeera “featured interviews with individuals affiliated with terrorist organizations and showcased Al Jazeera employees who are Hamas operatives,” the lawsuit alleges.
UpFront, a show produced and broadcast in D.C., has featured interviews with “designated terrorists,” including Osama Hamdan, a Hamas leader who is believed to have been killed by Israel in September 2024. Interviewees routinely receive payment from Al Jazeera, including from its D.C. office, the lawsuit alleges.
Through these broadcasts, the complaint states, Al Jazeera “further incited violence and impacted viewers nationwide,” establishing a “direct connection between” the outlet’s radical overseas activity and that in America.
Additional evidence presented in the lawsuit seeks to establish that Al Jazeera had prior operational insight into the October 7 attacks. While these plans were closely guarded by Hamas—with only five leaders fully briefed on the operation—Al Jazeera reporter Ismail Abu Omar began broadcasting footage live less than 10 minutes after the attack began.
Omar is one of seven Al Jazeera reporters identified in the lawsuit as Hamas operatives. Israel has also accused him of serving as a Hamas training company commander in the terrorist group’s East Khan Younis Battalion. Omar’s alleged ties to Hamas could explain why he began “sharing coverage of the attacks” as early as 6:31 a.m., nine minutes after the assault began, the lawsuit states.
Additional footage from that day shows Omar “entering Israel on October 7 and riding towards Kibbutz Nir Oz with multiple armed Hamas men,” according to evidence outlined in the lawsuit. Omar remains an Al Jazeera employee, nearly six months after Israeli intelligence first identified him as a Hamas operative.
Additional Al Jazeera employees named as terrorist operatives include Muhammad Washah, an Al Jazeera Live correspondent, and Ismail Al-Ghoul, a Gaza-based Arabic-language correspondent since November 2023.
Washah was found to be a “prominent commander” in Hamas’s anti-tank missile unit. Facebook photos from February 2024 show Washah “training Hamas members on how to use Rocket-Propelled Grenades (‘RPGs’), as well as preparing RPGs, other weapons, and drones,” according to the complaint.
Al-Ghoul, meanwhile, was originally hired in November 2023, well after he “publicly stated his commitment to Hamas” during a rally held by the terror group in 2021. Israeli intelligence subsequently found that Al-Ghoul was a member of Hamas’s Nukhba terror unit, which participated in the October 7 attack. He was killed in a July 2024 Israeli strike in Gaza near the home of slain Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh.
