Israel’s embassy in Brussels has asked Belgium to apologise for condemning a 2024 air strike that killed an employee of the Belgian development agency Enabel, after material surfaced linking the man to Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade.
Abdallah (also reported as Abdullah) Jamal Sobhi Nabhan, 33, a Palestinian staff member of Enabel, was killed on April 24, 2024 in an Israeli strike in eastern Rafah. Some relatives were also killed, reportedly including his seven-year-old son.
Nabhan had worked for Enabel since 2020 on a European programme supporting small businesses in Gaza.
Then development minister Caroline Gennez called the deaths unacceptable.
Foreign minister Hadja Lahbib summoned Israel’s ambassador. Brussels said at least seven people died in a building housing about 25, including displaced families.
“Bombing civilian areas & populations is contrary to international law. I will summon the Israeli ambassador to condemn this unacceptable act & demand an explanation”, Lahbib, now European Commissioner responsible for equality, preparedness and crisis management, said.
Israel said at the time that the house belonged to a senior Hamas figure in the wider family and that an investigation continued.
Israeli officials later said they passed Belgium names of Hamas operatives they alleged were on Enabel’s books. Israel says the agency took no action.
Enabel and the Belgian government have not publicly answered that claim in the latest exchange.
The case returned on September 4 when open-source researcher Gabriel Epstein published a mourning poster from a channel linked to Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade.
The poster called Nabhan a “mujahid” and showed him in military-style uniform.
Epstein also cited a 2025 post by a relative describing Nabhan and his brother Ahmad as “mujahideen”.
Israel says the same channel has previously named Hamas operatives, sometimes before the group issued its own notices.
The Times of Israel reported that the material had not been independently verified. There was no immediate reply from Belgium.
On that basis the Israeli embassy in Belgium wrote that Nabhan had belonged to the Khan Younis Brigade.
“Before rushing to condemn Israel, facts matter,” it said.
“A public apology would be preferable, but a private one will also be accepted.”
The embassy recalled that Belgium summoned the ambassador in 2024 and that international criticism followed.
The Khan Younis Brigade is a territorial unit of Hamas’s military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades.
Hamas has in other cases later identified dead members who were first presented only in civilian roles.
Abdullah Jamal Sobhi Nabhan (ID#: 803187939, age 32), a Gazan employee of Belgian international development agency Enabel, appears to have been a member of Hamas' Khan Younis Brigade. Nabhan was killed in an airstrike alongside his brother, father, and son in April 2024. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/eItnuEnJWf
— Gabriel Epstein (@GabrielEpsteinX) September 4, 2026
