In the final days of 2025, The Los Angeles Times briefly resurrected Hamas spokesperson Abu Obeida (also spelled Abu Ubaida) from the dead.
In a page-one Dec. 30, 2025 article, “Gaza militias key to Israel’s security plans; But some factions’ previous ties to Islamic State are raising alarm bells,” which also appeared online, The Times’ Nabih Bulos reported about Hamas’ confirmation of the loss of top commanders in Israeli strikes months earlier, noting:
Also killed was Abu Ubaida, the masked spokesman last seen in a September speech; the group identified him as Huthaifa Al-Kahlout. Israel previously disclosed his identity in 2023. [Emphasis added.]
Numerous news reports, including an Associated Press article reproduced Aug. 31 in The Los Angeles Times, as well as additional items from that same time published by Reuters, the BBC, and the New York Times, said that the Hamas spokesman was killed in a strike on Aug. 30, 2025, citing Israeli officials and the Israeli military, which issued a statement the next day.
One final September speech after his August death is certainly a curious chronology. A popular figure within the terror organization, Abu Obeida used his famed oratory skills to justify and call for the killing of Jews. But his ability to posthumously deliver a speech would have been a truly unprecedented feat never before achieved even by the most accomplished TED Talk speakers.
A screenshot from Abu Ubaida’s August 2025 speech (courtesy of MEMRI)
Alas, the truth is more mundane. The slain Hamas spokesman’s last speech on camera was in mid-July, not in September after his Aug. 30 death. Abu Obeida used his final 19-minute July speech to thank Yemen’s Houthis for attacking Israel, blame Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the absence of a new hostage-prisoner exchange deal, and stress the terrorist organization’s dedication to kill Israeli soldiers. A diligent terror mouthpiece to the very end, Abu Obeida issued his last written statement on Aug. 29, just one day before he was killed.
In response to communication from CAMERA’s Israel office, The Los Angeles Times commendably published a correction Dec. 31, 2025, both online and in print. The correction states:
Gaza militias: An article in the Dec. 30 Section A said that Hamas spokesman Abu Ubaida was last seen in a speech in September. The speech was made in July.
The correction was also appended to the original story on news database Lexis Nexis, ensuring that researchers do not use the incorrect information posed in the article.
Notably, AP’s August story, republished in The Times following the Israeli military’s announcement about the successful strike on Abu Obeida, had noted:
[Abu Obeida’s] statement said the militants would do their best to protect living hostages but warned that they would be in areas of fighting. He said the remains of dead hostages would “disappear forever.”
This selective reporting obfuscated the deadly threat in Abu Obeida’s Aug. 29 Telegram statement penned in Hebrew as a direct message to Israel (at left): “Plans to occupy Gaza City will cost the enemy army the blood of its soldiers and will increase the chances of capturing new soldiers, with Allah’s help.”
One day after Abu Obeida busied himself with issuing threats of killing and kidnapping more Israeli soldiers, he himself met his premature end, prompting his immediate replacement by the new “Abu Obeida.”
Following the killing of Abu Obeida, Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz posted on X (formerly Twitter) that the spokesman “was sent to meet all the eliminated members of the axis of evil from Iran, Gaza, Lebanon, and Yemen at the bottom of hell.”
Perhaps he caught a flight departing from Jerusalem’s International Airport to reach his new fiery destination.