There are two flourishing industries in Gaza – terrorism and journalism. One is all about killing Jews, the goal of the other is to deceive the world about it. The Al-Dahdouh family provides a perfect example of how they exist in a symbiotic relationship.

Wael Al-Dahdouh is a face of the current conflict in Gaza. He is the head of Al Jazeera’s Gaza office. Western media have consistently presented him as an innocent and tragic hero – and have even defended his family against Israeli accusations. Our media has let us down again. The truth is that the Al-Dahdouh clan is Islamic Jihad royalty. Wael spent seven years in an Israeli jail. His cousins have led the Islamic Jihad military apparatus. His own brother was targeted by Israel. Another cousin carried out a terror attack in Tel Aviv. His family even took part inside Israel in the Oct 7 massacre. In all I found that over twenty of Wael’s clan have been buried with honours by Islamic Jihad.

It is worth remembering that Islamic Jihad is a more extreme terrorist group than Hamas.

Taking us all for fools

On October 25, the IDF struck a house at the Nuseirat camp that belonged to some members of the Al-Dahdouh clan. The journalist Wael Al Dahdouh lost his wife, a child, and several other family members in the attack.

Wael Al-Dahdouh is the head of the Al Jazeera office in Gaza.  His tearful reporting following the incident went viral and he swiftly became one of the faces of the conflict. On December 15, Wael Al-Dahdouh was apparently injured in the incident in which Al Jazeera journalist Samer Abu Daqqa was killed. Then on January 7, another of his sons, Hamza Al-Dahdouh (also apparently an Al Jazeera ‘journalist’) died after Israel targeted the car in which he was travelling.

A few days later the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken got on his knees during a visit to Qatar to speak of the ‘unimaginable loss‘ that Al-Dahdouh had suffered.

Wael Al-Dahdouh now has 4.6 million followers on Instagram. If you have not seen his face – you have not been following news of the conflict.

Setting the scene

Wael’s own father ‘Haj Hamdan Al-Dahdouh’ died in 2012, but several of his uncles are still alive. Most people in the west do not understand Palestinian Arab society at all. Each clan has status, a leader, affiliations, and enemies. The Al-Dahdouh clan is large and powerful, and both Wael and his son Hamza married inside the clan. The head of the Al-Dahdouh clan is ‘Abu Shaaban Al-Dhadouh’.

We can see some of these connections from a FB post Wael’s son Hamza put out in August last year. While giving thanks to the safe return of one of those uncles, Hamza references others. We see names such as ‘Jaber’, ‘and ‘Ali’. He gives additional honour to the head of the clan – the ‘chosen’ – Abu Shaaban.

So when we look at a post regarding the casualty list from the 25 October attack, the names listed tell us that family members belonging to several branches of the Al-Dahdouh clan appear to have been there. Those names highlighted are ‘Hamdan’, ‘Shaaban’ and ‘Jaber’ – in line with the family branches of the ‘uncles’ mentioned in Hamza’s post (all part of Arabic naming conventions).

This raises questions. Was there any reason to target the Al-Dahdouh clan?

In the beginning there were terrorists and prison

On January 15 1993, Fakhri Attiya Al-Dahdouh made his way from Gaza to Tel Aviv. Upon reaching Tel Aviv’s bus station, he ‘charged down a street stabbing people in the back’.

Fakhri Al-Dahdouh was 23. He was a member of the Islamic Jihad. He was Wael Al-Dahdouh’s cousin.

Wael Al- Dahdouh was unable to attend his cousin’s funeral because in 1993 he was sitting inside an Israeli jail.  Wael had been arrested for ‘participating in the Intifada against the occupier’.

From Palestinian and Israeli sources we learn he was arrested for ‘throwing Molotov cocktails at Israeli army patrols’. He was apparently part of an active Islamic Jihad cell, and was caught alongside another brother / cousin Ismail Al-Dahdouh.

Wael Al-Dahdouh was sentenced to fifteen years, but served only seven, being released sometime during 1995.

2024 – the terrorist son

Jumping forward to January 7 2024, Wael’s son Hamza was killed by the IDF in a targeted strike. The IDF produced documents which show that the son Hamza was an Islamic Jihad terrorist. The IJ document below contains Al-Dahdouh’s name along with his military number.

Incredibly, mainstream media outlets jumped to the defence of Hamza Al-Dahdouh (see also the BBC). Acting as if it must be an outrageous lie he had been an Islamic Jihad terrorist. It seems that not one of them bothered to do any research.

2021 – the loss of Zia Al-Dahdouh

In December 2021 Al Jazeera Gaza bureau chief Wael Al-Dahdouh posted about the sad loss of his nephew, Zia Kamal Al-Dahdouh:

From another of Wael’s posts we learn that Zia was the son of his brother Kamal. Wael’s own son, Hamza (the Islamic Jihad terrorist who recently died) – also mourned the loss of his cousin. From Hamza’s post we learn it was following an accident (injury) of sorts.

They both posted several messages, along with footage of them both at the house of mourning before the funeral – although as it turned out, their own footage was somewhat carefully edited (1,2). Digging deeper we find that Zia Al-Dahdouh was injured in May 2020, and remained in a coma for 18 months before passing away in December 2021.

It seems everyone in the Al-Dahdouh family is a journalist. Zia was no exception:

But then he sometimes exchanged his camera for the tools of an Islamic Jihad terrorist:

It turns out the Zia Kamal Al-Dahdouh was an active Islamic Jihad member and his ‘accident’ occurred on the job (explosion). As can be seen in the footage, his funeral was quite the Islamic Jihad affair:

 

Wael Al Dahdouh knew about all this of course. He even posted this message in the name of his family – explicitly thanking Islamic Jihad.

October 7 2023 – the young Khaled Al-Dhadouh

Another member of the Al-Dahdouh clan was killed on October 7.  His name was Khaled Shaaban Al-Dahdouh. He died inside Israel – and was part of the terrorist group that massacred people in Sderot.

From his funeral, we can see he is also from Islamic Jihad the same affiliation as all the others.

There is no family distance to any of this. On 14 August 2023, Wael’s brother returned from a health trip abroad. The son Hamza put out a post tagging just his father, and a handful of other close family members.

Checking the timeline of one of those tagged – Majde Dhdooh -we get to see all three together. Wael, Hamza and Majde:

From Majde’s timeline we can also see he lost family in that strike on October 25 – along with Wael’s family. There is another recent post of note – honouring his fallen cousin, Islamic Jihad terrorist Khaled Al-Dahdouh – who took part in the Oct 7 atrocities in Sderot.

But Majde’s post informs us of something even more important. Khaled was the son of another Khaled Al-Dahdouh, who he refers to as the ‘chief’. Here is the son, holding an image of his father:

Khaled Al-Dhadouh senior

Khaled Al Dhadouh (Abu Al-Walid) ,was another of Wael Al Dahdouh’s cousins. They knew each other well and his death ‘deeply affected‘ Wael, ‘because of the special relationship between them over many years of friendship in and outside the occupation prisons‘.

Khaled Al Dhadouh was Islamic Jihad’s top military commander. He was killed by Israel in a targeted strike in 2006

Islamic Jihad royalty – the Al-Dahdouh clan

Wael’s family has a long history of producing martyrs for Islamic Jihad. There are so many that the Al-Dahdouh clan holds festivals to remember them all:

The special website set up to honour the fallen martyrs lists more names. Mohammed Sami Al-Dahdouh was killed in 2017, and Islamic Jihad colours took him to his grave.

Shaaban Suleiman Al-Dahdouh was another Islamic Jihad commander and was targeted in July 2014.

Going back to 2010 and another terrorist belonging to the IJ military wing was killed – Adham Khaled Al-Dahdouh. He was the son of the leader of the Al-Quds Brigades (Wael’s good friend and cousin). In 2009 it was Adham’s brother Kamel.

Kamel Khaled Al-Dahdouh (the other son) was killed in September 2009 while firing rockets. In the image on the right he is standing next to one:

This is why Islamic Jihad roll out the mothers of the Al-Dadhouh clan as royalty, when Islamic Jihad celebrate their own:

Other Islamic Jihad martyrs from Wael’s clan can be added to the list. Atta Kamal Al-Dahdouh also died in 2009. We don’t have a picture of him fighting. Ali Hamdi Al-Dahdouh died in 2008, Abdul Karim Marawan Al-Dahdouh died in Dec 2007. All members of Islamic Jihad.

Mahdi Marawan Al-Dahdouh was a commander with Islamic Jihad. He was one of the first to fire rockets on Ashkelon. He died from injuries sustained in an Israeli attack in 2007.

Another addition to bookmark is Nidal Abdel Aziz Al-Dahdouh who was killed in August 2006. Btselem record he died while shooting at Israeli soldiers.

He was just 16 and counted as a child. So when newspapers like the Independent wrote about his death – they just forgot to mention he was a terrorist. They also got his age wrong. They said he was 14.

Muhammad Shaaban Al-Dahdouh was another commander in the Islamic Jihad. He was the brother of Khaled the head of the IJ military branch and an engineer behind the development of the IJ rockets. He was killed in a targeted strike in 2006

The list goes on and on.

2004 – Wael Al-Dahdouh’s family takes a direct hit

On 28 February 2004, Israel struck a car carrying leaders of the Islamic Jihad terror group. Inside the car were three terrorists – Ayman Shaaban Al-Dahdouh, Amin Hamdan Al-Dahdouh, and Mahmoud Abd al-Fatah Mahmoud Judah.

All these people were Islamic Jihad

They were all members of Wael’s family. Amin was Wael’s own brother – Ayman al Dahdud was Wael’s cousin – Mamoud Judah was Wael’s brother in law.

Mahmoud Judeh, the brother in-law was Commander-in-Chief of IJ’s military apparatus, the Al-Quds Brigades.

It shows the status of the Al-Dahdouh family in Islamic Jihad – that the elite were either part of the family – or marrying into it. We are even told that even though Wael’s sister knew that he was wanted by the Zionist occupation forces – she and her family did not hesitate to accept him.

Wael’s family feature in the images the clan promote for the martyr festivals (Wael’s brother is top row, second left – most of the others are cousins and their children):

A pride of place

The family is frequently honoured by the terrorist groups. In June 2022 when the Al Dahdouh clan received a delegation from Hamas – Wael can be seen at the gathering:

These deep family connections explain why Al Jazeera is praised and trusted by the terrorist groups:

This is Wael Al-Dahdouh with Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

The post below was taken from a Palestinian forum. The photos referenced in the post below have gone, but the thread still exists. The date is from 2010 so we cannot be sure to which of Wael’s martyred relatives the post is referring. But the message is clear (see yellow highlight):

Later in the thread, someone questions whether this Al-Dahdouh is the Al Jazeera journalist, The response is clear – yes, and he is a member of IJ:

 

It is no surprise that Wael Al-Dahdouh made his name for Al Jazeera by being allowed up close and personal with the terrorist groups. Given all the above, it is clear why he was allowed such access. Wael Al-Dahdouh has a VIP family pass:

Questions that must be asked

There is clearly no separating the family of Wael Al-Dahdouh from Islamic Jihad. It is also obvious why such a family would find members targeted. The positive and sympathetic coverage he received highlights an inexcusable failure on the part of the world’s largest media outlets. And it leaves important questions that need to be answered:

1. In 2004, Wael Al Dahdouh had spent several years in an Israeli jail. One of his cousins was a commander of Islamic Jihad. His own brother had just been taken out. His brother in-law was the commander of the IJ military in Gaza. Several other family members, including his cousin in 1993 were all known terrorists. What on earth was on his CV that made Al Jazeera offer this man a job?

2. Why is there not a single report out of the thousands written by mainstream media outlets that references even one of these terrorist family ties? It is as if they do not exist. When his family were killed, they were treated by the media as the innocent family of a journalist. What happened to our media – does nobody do any research at all?

3. Just this week, the BBC Arabic chief in Gaza, Adnan El-Bursh refered to Wael Al-Dahdouh as ‘my friend’. El-Bursh describes crying when he heard the news about Wael’s family – and he even says he wishes he had been there to comfort him. How is this revisionist nonsense allowed – and why is the British public funding Hamas propaganda?. There is no way that El-Bursh is unaware of the terrorist affiliation of this family. These BBC Arabic journalists are playing the BBC for fools.

 

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