On April 24th, 2024, an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis killed six people. According to the Israeli Ambassador to Belgium, the strike targeted a senior Hamas member. However, because the strike killed Abdullah Jamal Nabhan—whose employer, the Belgian development agency “Enable,” listed him as a Business Development Officer—international media rushed to condemn Israel for the killing of a Belgian aid worker. Belgium’s Foreign Minister demanded an explanation, and outlets like Reuters and Politico published headlines decrying the death.

On September 4, 2026, investigator Gabriel Epstein exposed on X that Abdullah was, in fact, an active fighter in Hamas’ Khan Younis Brigade. The thread included a photo of Abdullah from a popular Hamas-affiliated Telegram channel known for eulogizing fallen combatants.

Abdullah Nabhan featured in military gear in an official Hamas martyr post, designated as “The Martyr Mujahid.”

The photo features Abdullah in full military gear. On the bottom, it reads “Abdullah Jamal Nabhan,” and above it, “The Martyr Mujahid.” The thread also included a screenshot where Abdullah’s surviving brother, Abdul, refers to Abdullah and their brother Ahmed (who also died in the strike) as “mujahideen.”

The term “mujahideen” shares its root with “jihad” — both derived from the Arabic for “to strive” or “to struggle” — and specifically designates an active fighter, in contrast to “shahid” (“martyr”), a far broader cultural term often applied to any deceased individual.

Social media confirmation from surviving brother Abdul Nabhan, eulogizing his brothers explicitly as “mujahideen.”

Abdullah’s family members, notably a cousin, quickly contested this exposure, claiming they were appalled by what they termed an “AI obituary” and false news. However, a UN Watch investigation has uncovered a trove of evidence linking the Nabhan family directly to senior Hamas officials, confirming the initial assessment that this was a targeted military strike. The investigation also reveals the family’s documented pattern of camouflaging as aid workers, UNRWA teachers, and journalists to delude Western audiences.

1. The Patriarch: Jamal Nabhan

Jamal Nabhan was the patriarch of the family. Married to Umm Muhammad (the Matriarch), he fathered four sons (Abdullah, Ahmed, Mohammed, and Abdul) and four daughters (Wafaa, Asmaa, Safaa, and Shimma). Jamal was killed in the April 24 strike alongside several of his children and extended family members.

Jamal Nabhan serving as Administrative Director at Gaza’s Al-Aqsa University.

Jamal served as an Administrative Director at Al-Aqsa University, a position subject directly to Hamas appointment. The rift over Gaza’s Al-Aqsa University escalated in 2015 when the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Hamas-run government clashed over the authority to appoint the institution’s president and manage its financial assets. After Hamas unilaterally installed its own acting chairman without PA approval, the PA retaliated by cutting salaries for pro-Hamas academics, freezing university funds, and officially invalidating new student degrees.

Ultimately, Hamas cemented full administrative control over the university by leveraging its de facto governing power in the Gaza Strip to override PA directives, replace senior staff with loyalists, and independently force students to pay tuition fees to sustain operations. Consequently, any appointment made through that local chain of command — such as an administrative director — was installed with Hamas’s explicit vetting and approval.

Prior to retiring in 2019, Jamal maintained deep connections with senior extremist figures. At his son Ahmed’s wedding in 2016, Jamal was photographed alongside Jamil Matou’a, a senior Hamas figure and brother-in-law to Yahya Sinwar. Jamil Matou’a’s son, Mus’ab Matou’a (Abu Jamil al-Ghazawi), joined ISIS and was later killed in combat. In another photo from the wedding, Jamal is pictured alongside Dr. Yahya Musa, a senior Hamas leader frequently seen appearing publicly with Sinwar.

Left: Jamal Nabhan pictured with senior Hamas figure Jamil Matou’a. Right: Jamil Matou’a alongside Yahya Sinwar.

Left: Jamal Nabhan with senior Hamas official Dr. Yahya Musa. Right: Dr. Yahya Musa with Yahya Sinwar.

Jamal’s ideology permeated the entire family home. On a Facebook photo showing his infant grandson wearing a Hamas headband, Jamal commented: “God willing, he will grow up and defend his religion and his country.” His wife added: “may we see him become the best Qassami,” referring directly to Hamas’s military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades.

Facebook comments from Jamal Nabhan and his wife praying for their infant grandson to become a Qassam fighter.

2. The Media Commander: Mohammed Bassem Ahmed al-Jamal

Mohammed Bassem was the son-in-law of the Nabhan family, married to Jamal’s daughter, Shimma. Severely injured in the April 24 strike, he died the following day.

According to local outlet Al-Quds, Mohammed Bassem worked for the Palestine Now News Agency and Al-Aqsa Channel (Hamas’s official, globally sanctioned propaganda network) as a photographer and editing technician. After his death, Western media outlets like The Guardian listed him as a journalist casualty, and Al-Quds claimed Israel targeted “the home of the Palestinian journalist.”

The reality is that Mohammed Bassem was a commander in the Qassam Brigades’ Military Media Department—a fact that even the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) subsequently acknowledged. In an obituary video posted by Hamas, he is armed and dressed in full military uniform while conducting tactical training exercises, touring operational tunnels, firing RPGs, and editing battlefield footage for the terror group.

Left: Mohammed Bassem presented publicly as a press photographer. Center & Right: Hamas obituary footage showing Bassem inside attack tunnels, armed, and conducting military media operations.

3. The “Aid Worker”: Abdullah Jamal Nabhan

This brings us back to Abdullah, the man whose death sparked international media condemnation. Framed as a Belgian “Business Development Officer,” Abdullah was deeply embedded in the family’s militant network.

Following his death in the April 24 strike, his wife, Amal, posted that Abdullah had “attained what [he] wished for,” achieving the “eternal bliss of Paradise”—the traditional phrasing for a fallen combatant. Amal has also actively supported family social media posts featuring children doused in Hamas militant equipment.

Top Left: Abdullah Jamal Nabhan with his wife, Amal. Top Right: Amal memorializing Abdullah’s desired “martyrdom.” Bottom: Social interactions praising military indoctrination within the family.

4. The Surviving and Past Brothers

Militancy was a prerequisite for the Nabhan brothers.

Mohammed Nabhan: Abdullah’s brother Mohammed was killed in 2004 at the age of 17 while engaging the IDF during the Second Intifada. Rather than hide this, his sister Asmaa recently posted a memorial photo of him wearing a Hamas headband and holding an assault rifle. His photo also frequently appears alongside obituary posts of other family members.

Memorial posts from Asmaa and Abdul honoring their brother Mohammed armed with an assault rifle.

Abdul Nabhan: The only living brother, Abdul, is a former UNRWA teacher who later moved to a school run by the Hamas Ministry of Education. While still employed by UNRWA in December 2022, he openly posted: “Happy New Year to Hamas!”

Abdul’s social media is a timeline of terror glorification. In January 2023, he live-celebrated a synagogue shooting in Jerusalem that killed seven people, sharing propaganda from the Al-Qassam Brigades; the Hamas poster’s rhetoric invokes Yahya Ayyash, the Hamas bomb-maker known as “the Engineer” for orchestrating a wave of suicide bombings in Israel during the 1990s. On the morning of the October 7th massacre, he posted: “Death will not harm us… if it occurs after this date: 7/10/2023.” On October 12, 2023 he posted: “God is more powerful than America and Britain, so what are you afraid of?!…He has supported Al-Aqsa, and He has supported our brothers.” Following the April 24 strike that wiped out his father and brothers, Abdul eulogized them all as “mujahedeen” and “martyrs.” He later wrote “My family has won…For whoever among us is killed is a martyr…’And never think of those who have been killed in the cause of Allah as dead. Rather, they are alive with their Lord, receiving provision.’ [Quran 3:169]…”

Documented records showing Abdul’s transition from UNRWA educator to active online Hamas propagandist, celebrating October 7, Jerusalem synagogue attacks, and eulogizing family members.

5. The Sisters: Enablers and Educators

The women of the Nabhan family play a crucial role in indoctrinating the next generation, blending their roles in the education system with open terror support.

Wafaa: An UNRWA daily teacher in 2024, Wafaa previously won “Outstanding Teacher” at a Hamas Ministry school. She has posted videos of her child draped in Yasser Arafat memorial gear. In a photo where her father appears to pose next to Yahya Sinwar’s brother-in-law, she refers to him as her “role model.”

Wafaa Nabhan receiving teaching awards from the Hamas Ministry of Education and posting political propaganda featuring her child.

Asmaa: Appointed principal of a Hamas Ministry of Education girls’ school. Her husband, Rami Jasser, also known as Prof. Dr. Rami Alghamri, a Cambridge PhD graduate, has posted photos of himself in a Hamas scarf. Alghamri is the chairman of EMAAR, the Gaza Development and Rehabilitation Association. He also served on the board of directors for the “Palestinian Independent Commission to Prosecute the Zionist Occupation’s Crimes Against the Palestinians” from 2011-2013.

Left: School promotion notices for Asmaa. Right: Her husband, Cambridge graduate Rami Jasser, wearing a Hamas scarf.

Safaa: Frequently posts photos of her children in full militant attire. In one image, a masked combatant holds an assault rifle alongside a baby dressed in Hamas gear, whom Safaa affectionately named “Al-Quassami Jimo.”

Safaa Nabhan uploading photos of infants dressed in Hamas military uniforms paired with automatic weapons.

Shimma: The widow of media commander Mohammed Bassem. Following the strike that killed her husband, father, and brothers, she wrote: “our solace is that you’ve attained martyrdom.” Shimaa also responded to a photo of her infant in Hamas gear, writing: “she’s happy with our little one who just arrived… may god protect him…”

Top: Shimaa eulogizing her husband and father. Bottom: Social media post dressing her newborn in Hamas headbands.