The Al Jazeera Media Network logo is seen on its headquarters building in Doha, Qatar, June 8, 2017. Photo: REUTERS/Naseem Zeitoon

A media rights organization has quietly removed at least eight individuals from its roster of media workers killed while doing journalistic work. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said it acted after Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad published obituaries identifying people the organization had listed as journalists as combatants. In plain terms, these were not journalists killed for reporting. They were members of designated terrorist entities.

Weeks later, a Palestinian reporter, Abubaker Abed, revealed in a tweet that Al Jazeera had ended the contracts of at least 24 of its own Gaza-based reporters and media workers. Israeli security officials previously identified at least three of the terminated staff as Hamas operatives based on documents seized in Gaza. Al Jazeera has previously denied its staff were operatives of terrorist organizations.

Gaza camera producer Mahmoud Shalha, who was not one of the three, disclosed that he was let go via a 15-second phone call with no official explanation or advance notice and without expressions of gratitude for his work. The network has not made public comments about the terminations.

Companies regularly reassess budgets and priorities, but the optics here pose understandable questions. Reporters posted that they had been abandoned and left without financial security.

According to Gaza24Live, some of those let go may be rehired on a freelance basis through a third-party company, although without benefits or job security. The third-party company, called MEDIA, is still being established, according to an Arabic-language press report. A middleman in Gaza would extend a familiar pattern. Al Jazeera International (USA) LLC serves as the operating vehicle for its US bureaus and digital units like AJ+.

It’s entirely conceivable that the timing of the terminations of the 20 + reporters that followed the removals from CPJ’s killed-in-service lists is coincidental. But it also invites the question about whether someone in Doha may be thinking about the company’s own potential liability, mindful that CPJ announced it is undertaking a review of its documentation of journalists killed in the Israel-Gaza war since 2023.

Victims of Hamas terrorism have already sued Al Jazeera under the Anti-Terrorism Act, alleging that Al Jazeera functioned as an operational accomplice to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), rather than operating strictly as an independent news organization.  Al Jazeera filed a motion to dismiss, arguing the complaint failed to state a claim. That motion is pending.

If Al Jazeera employed people who were connected to Hamas, PIJ, or other terrorist groups, that could signal to Al Jazeera’s technology partners, like Google, that it may not sufficiently uphold the professional standards that make a partnership safe.

Why did the terminations take place now? Some close observers of the network tell me the cuts are tied to a restructuring – or possibly even shutting down – of Al Jazeera Mubasher, the live-broadcast sister channel of the Qatari network. The new media strategy reportedly would limit coverage from Gaza to packaged and edited Al Jazeera’s news bulletins, where Doha has more editorial control, rather than the live broadcasts handled by Al Jazeera Mubasher.

Others tell me it’s tied to cost savings. But Qatar is the richest Arab nation and holds the fourth-highest GDP per capita in the world adjusted for purchasing power.  It seems unlikely that a network backed by that kind of money would shed its Gaza staff solely to save on payroll.

Still others speculate the terminations could be related to friction inside Hamas itself. This reading ties the cuts to tension between Khaled Meshaal, head of Hamas abroad, who reportedly is living a life of luxury in Doha, and Khalil al-Hayya, the group’s newly minted politburo chief who, while also living in Doha, spent years in Gaza and is regarded as representing the Gaza-based, hardline faction. He is said to be favored by the Qassam Brigades and to maintain close ties with Tehran. If this assessment is the case, thinning the Gaza staff would mean fewer channels for al-Hayya’s operatives to push their message through Al Jazeera.

Will the removal of these journalists change Al Jazeera’s editorial output? Al Jazeera has never, to my knowledge, criticized Hamas for its terrorism. On the contrary, emblematic of its approach was when one courageous Gazan sought to share his criticism of Hamas for using civilians as human shields, only to have Al Jazeera’s reporter abruptly cut him off, in a clip that went viral. The network did not report that Gazans protested against Hamas. I am not holding my breath for its editorial policy to change. If terminated employees do end up providing freelance services, will Al Jazeera’s coverage look any different?

Abed’s tweet noted that some terminated Al Jazeera journalists and their families were evacuated from Gaza. Where have they gone, and will they continue to operate within the Al Jazeera ecosystem? No one has said definitively.

Former Al Jazeera reporters have told me they feel that the network’s leadership does not care about them and several of those terminated have not been shy about saying this publicly. Al Jazeera’s management will have to contend with these internal fires.

Whether Al Jazeera really fired these individuals for budgetary reasons, because it’s nervous about increased scrutiny, some combination of both, or something else entirely is yet to be determined. International journalist advocacy groups, technology partners, and the network’s wider audience should watch this closely. How Al Jazeera addresses these developments will be the real tell.

Toby Dershowitz is senior advisor of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a non-partisan organization focused on national security. Follow her on X @tobydersh. A version of this article was originally published by Real Clear World.