A Palestinian journalist and his family held three Israeli hostages captive in their home in the Gaza Strip until their rescue on Saturday morning, the Israeli Defense Forces said on Sunday.

“Following the completion of IDF and ISA examinations of reports on the subject, it can be confirmed that Abdallah Aljamal was an operative in the Hamas terrorist organization, who held the hostages Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv captive in his family home in Nuseirat,” the IDF said in a statement.

“The hostages were held captive by Abdallah Aljamal and members of his family in their home,” the statement continued, calling the discovery “further evidence of the deliberate use of civilian homes and buildings by the Hamas terrorist organization to hold Israeli hostages captive in the Gaza Strip.”

Meir Jan, Kozlov and Ziv were rescued as part of an operation that also freed Noa Argamani, who was held in a separate building. All four were taken hostage from the Nova music festival on Oct. 7.

Aljamal, his father and wife were killed during the IDF operation, in which an Israeli officer, Arnon Zamora, was also injured. Zamora later died from his wounds; the IDF announced on Saturday evening that the operation would be named “Operation Arnon” in his memory.

Aljamal was a contributor to The Palestine Chronicle, and published frequently on the site. On June 3, he published an article with the headline “My House Will Always Be Open – Stories from the Gaza Siege.” 

The Palestine Chronicle is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization in the U.S. with the official name People Media Project.

In 2019, Aljamal published an article tagged as an opinion piece on Al Jazeera’s website. Al Jazeera attempted to distance itself from Aljamal on Sunday, saying, “This man is not from Al-Jazeera, and he did not work for Al-Jazeera at all, and he is not listed as working for Al-Jazeera neither now nor in the past. We do not know him, and all the rumors that have been spread are empty of content and not true at all.”

Jewish Insiders Lahav Harkov contributed to this report.