Lawsuit: Hamas captors showed hostage report about Columbia protesters, called them ‘our own people’

Hamas captors holding Israeli hostage Shlomi Ziv showed him news about protesters at Columbia University, according to a new legal filing.

While playing the news report for Ziv, his captors said, “You see, we have our own people everywhere,” the lawsuit says.

“They then told him that Hamas has an ‘army’ operating out of Gaza that focuses specifically on media and sending Hamas propaganda and messaging throughout America and all around the world,” the lawsuit says.

The legal filing is an amended complaint filed yesterday in the federal Southern District court of New York.

The new details about Ziv’s captivity add to his testimony in a separate lawsuit. In that case, Ziv said his captors told him they were collaborating with campus protesters.

The lawsuit identified Ziv’s captor as Abdallah Aljamal, a writer for the Palestine Chronicle, a news outlet run by the People Media Project, a US-based, tax-exempt nonprofit.

A federal judge has ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in that case earlier this month, saying there was reason to believe the nonprofit knew Aljamal was holding Israelis captive and affiliated with Hamas.

Ziv was rescued from Gaza in an IDF operation in June 2024.