The Gaza-based reporter who held three Israeli hostages captive at his home worked for a US non-profit accused of “providing material support to Hamas” where hard-left professor Noam Chomsky sits on the editorial board.
Abdallah Aljamal — killed by Israeli Defense Forces during the raid to free the hostages from his home in Nuseirat — was a regular correspondent for The Palestine Chronicle, an Olympia, Washington state-based news outlet established in 1999, with sister publications in France and Italy.
Aljamal’s articles for the website lamenting the evils of war continued until just before the June 8 raid — many seemingly written while Jewish hostages taken by Hamas in their Oct. 7th terror attack were captive at his house.
The National Jewish Advocacy Center, a non-profit based in Atlanta, is now demanding the Department of Justice and FBI investigate The Palestine Chronicle.
The Advocacy Center also said Aljamal had worked as a spokesman for Hamas in Gaza’s Ministry of Labor.
Aljamal, 36, filed regular reports on the fighting in Gaza for The Palestine Chronicle, which listed him as “a correspondent” on June 8 — the day hostages Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov and Shlomi Ziv were rescued from his residence.
In an apparent attempt to distance themselves from Aljamal, a day later he was listed as a “freelance contributor” on the outlet’s web site, according to a June 10 letter sent to the DOJ by the National Jewish Advocacy Center and seen by The Post.
“Within hours, his status on The Palestine Chronicle’s website had changed to ‘contributor’ and the Palestine Chronicle released a statement alleging he contributed to the organization on a ‘voluntary basis,’” the letter says.
The letter also noted how US entities which knowingly provide material support to terrorist organizations could be in violation of terrorism laws and subject to criminal penalties.
Hamas has been designated a terrorist organization by the State Department since 1997.
The chair of the House Ways and Means Committee sent a letter to the IRS last week demanding the revocation of the news outlet’s non-profit status.
“The facts suggest that the People Media Project is not being operated exclusively for its charitable purpose … and is instead circumventing its tax-exempt charitable purpose by supporting the terrorist organization, Hamas,” wrote Missouri Rep Jason Smith.
The newspaper is run by the People Media Project, which registered as a non-profit in 2012, according to public filings.
Chomsky, 95, an activist and prominent linguistics professor, is listed as an “honorary editorial board member,” and has been featured on the outlet in interviews and articles since 2015.
“The Palestine Chronicle has been an invaluable source of information and analysis about Palestine and related issues, drawing from a wide range of sources, including many that are otherwise inaccessible to the concerned public,” Chomsky said in a statement on the outlet’s website, seeking donations for the group.
Chomsky is currently recovering from a stroke in his wife Valeria’s native Brazil, and could not be reached for comment Monday.
However, it’s unclear where People Media Project gets its funding. The group does not provide annual tax filings to the IRS, claiming it takes in less than $50,000 a year in donations. That puts it under the threshold requiring them to file detailed reports under IRS rules.
The group’s mission statement says its charitable purpose is “to educate the general public by providing a forum that strives to highlight issues of relevance to human rights.” There is no mention of its advocacy on behalf of Gaza or Palestine.
The non-profit was incorporated by John Harvey, who has described himself as a Buddhist priest and “dedicated supporter of justice for the Palestinian people.”
He was also affiliated with the Olympia-Rafah Sister City Project, a non-profit that recently had its tax exempt status revoked by the IRS for failure to file annual tax returns for three consecutive years, according to public documents.
Olympia, the capital of Washington state, rejected the sister city proposal in 2007.
Olympia was the home of 23-year-old anti-Israel activist Rachel Corrie, who was killed in Rafah in 2003 after being crushed by an Israeli bulldozer, while trying to stop Palestinian homes from being pulled down in Gaza.
A local foundation in her name started by Corrie’s family promotes the Olympia-Rafah Solidarity Mural, a 4,000 square foot art project started in 2007.
The Palestine Chronicle also refuted official Israeli claims the three hostages were being held in Abdallah’s home in an obituary, and did not return The Post’s request for comment Friday.
“Abdallah Aljamal’s reports have focused entirely on the humanitarian situation in Gaza, especially in the central part of the Strip, starting shortly after the war,” The Palestine Chronicle said in a statement on its website.
“His contributions became frequent when Israel deliberately began killing journalists, making it nearly impossible for the Palestinian voice to break away from the Gaza siege.”
In addition to The Palestine Chronicle, Aljamal’s work also appeared on Al Jazeera, an Arabic-language news network financed by the Qatari government.
In 2019, he contributed an opinion piece for the network co-authored with Ramzy Baroud, one of the founders and editor of the Palestine Chronicle.
Baroud defended the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7 which left 1,200 dead and has written for Kayhan International, a news outlet funded by Iran, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
He is a professor at the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
