Head of Hamas Media Office Defends Alleged Front Group Following Jewish Onliner Exposé
Hamas official's public defense of EuroMed chairman Ramy Abdu, following exposé about Zohran Mamdani's father, raises new questions about the group's alleged connections to the designated terror group
Following a Jewish Onliner investigation revealing that Ramy Abdu—whom Israel designated as a Hamas operative—serves alongside Columbia professor Mahmood Mamdani on the Gaza Tribunal’s advisory council, both Abdu and a senior Hamas official have responded to the allegations.
Abdu dismissed the reporting in several posts on X as a “coordinated campaign” aimed at “tarnishing my reputation and credibility.” Abdu’s responses notably avoided denying any of the specific factual allegations, including his 2013 Israeli designation, his admitted family ties to senior Hamas official Muhammad Daoud Ismail al-Jamassi, or his childhood friendship with Mujahideen Brigades founder Assad Abu Sharia. Instead, Abdu attacked the sourcing as “Zionist and right-wing American media.”
Following Abdu’s outburst, he was defended by Dr. Ismail Al-Thawabta, Director General of the Hamas Media Office, who quote-tweeted Abdu’s response. Al-Thawabta wrote: “These smear campaigns expose the falsehood of Israeli claims and their allied media, showing that targeting Palestinians goes beyond the occupied territories to include reputational attacks abroad.”
In a statement to Jewish Onliner following these developments, the NGO Monitor watchdog organization noted that:
“For over a decade, Euro-Med’s current and former directors, Ramy Abdu and Mazen Kahel, have been identified by Israel as Hamas operatives who use NGOs to advance the terror group’s agenda. Since October 7, Euro-Med has published several baseless reports accusing Israeli soldiers of sexual violence, child executions, and organ theft. Based mainly on anonymous testimonies collected by the NGO itself, these assertions are by design nearly impossible to verify — and serve as yet another example of Hamas’s atrocity inversion campaign in international fora.
The Hamas official’s defense of Abdu presents a significant credibility problem for those denying the alleged connections. As several observers have noted, designated terror organizations rarely publicly defend individuals unless there is a relationship worth protecting.