Israeli filmmaker Yuval Avraham has a longstanding relationship with Hamas-linked Palestinian journalist and activist Ahmed Alnaouq, investigative journalist Eitan Fischberger first reported Sunday.
Avraham has been in the headlines this week after his film, NAZA, won the Special Jury Prize at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival on Saturday.
The film has received intense criticism from most Israeli politicians, and the IDF stated its categorical rejection of the film’s allegations.
Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar said he would seek to revoke Abraham and Szor’s Israeli citizenship, accusing the filmmakers of committing an “act of treason against the state.”
Fischberger’s criticism focused on Avraham himself, rather than his opus.
In 2019, Avraham – then a young journalist – reached out to Alnaouq to discuss what young people in the Gaza Strip know and think about politics in Gaza. The two got along, and in late 2019, created the Across the Wall initiative.
Across the Wall provides a platform for young Palestinians to write their personal stories, which are then translated into Hebrew.
Avraham has often referred to Alnaouq as a “close friend” and “partner.”
Alnaouq: vice president of Hamas-linked organization
Alnaouq is a London-based Palestinian “journalist” and human rights activist. He also serves as the vice president, treasurer, and outreach and advocacy officer at the Hamas-linked Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor and is co-founder and advisory council member of the British Palestinian Committee.
Euro-Med has been designated by Israel as a terrorist organization since 2015. It is known for disseminating blood libels and conspiracy theories, including notably accusing Israel of “organ theft” and training police dogs to “rape prisoners and detainees.”
Earlier this year, Israel’s Diaspora Affairs Ministry also revealed that Euro-Med founder Ramy Abdu is a Hamas operative.
Alnaouq's brother was eulogized by Hamas
Alnaouq has also previously claimed that his brother, Ayman, was a “member of the resistance” killed in 2014 by the Israeli security forces.
Hamas’s Qassam Brigades posted an eulogy of Ayman with a picture of him holding a machine gun and wearing a Hamas headband. This post is still available through archival engines.
Speaking to American journalist Pam Bailey in 2017 (as reported in the Felesteen daily), Alnaouq said, “I came to understand that resistance fighters are nothing more than young people who loved life and loved their homeland, but left their comfortable lives and joined the resistance to confront the Israeli occupation, and defend their homeland and land that had been taken from them since the Nakba of the Palestinian people in 1948.”
In an interview with Zman Yisrael in 2021, Avraham referred to the killing of Ayman as a “very great tragedy.”