The German public broadcaster Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF) announced on Monday that an employee of its Palestinian partner organization, who was killed last week, was a Hamas terrorist.
Israel provided the television network with evidence proving 37-year-old Ahmed Abu Mutair’s involvement in the terrorist group, the ZDF confirmed.
It has now suspended cooperation with the Palestine Media Production (PMP) company after working with the organization for decades, the ZDF said.
“The ZDF welcomes the fact that the Israeli army has complied with the request to clarify the identity of the killed employee of the production company PMP in Gaza,” the broadcaster said.
About the engineer-terrorist
Mutair was killed less than two weeks ago in Deir el-Balah along with an eight-year-old son of a coworker, according to the ZDF.
A source told Bild that Mutair had been the target.
“A corresponding document was presented as evidence. Based on the document, the ZDF assumes that the engineer was a member of the Izzadin al-Qassam Brigades,” the network said in a statement.
“In response, the ZDF has suspended cooperation until further notice. The document does not provide any information on when or how the engineer worked for Hamas, or on the tasks he undertook,” it further said.
“According to current information, however, the ZDF has no indications that other PMP employees might be members of Hamas. The IDF has also not provided the ZDF with any such information,” it continued.
Responding to the news, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said that Hamas’s narratives were ubiquitous in the media.
“Hamas doesn’t merely benefit from supportive journalism. It implants [its] own people in foreign media operations,” the ministry stated in a post to X/Twitter. “You’re being fed Hamas ideology on the front pages of your media.”