Hours after White House intelligence agencies authenticated the videotaped beheading of Steven Sotloff, the Israeli government announced that the slain American journalist was its citizen.

Reuters reported that the Israeli government imposed local and international media blackout on Sotlofff's identity, who has dual citizenship, in a bid to prevent risking the journalist's life after getting captured by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) militants last year.

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"The censors issued a gag order against reporting that he was an Israeli citizen," Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman confirmed Wednesday afternoon.

"We are also in close touch with the United States on this entire matter, both ISIS (Islamic State) and the journalist Sotloff," he added.

Lieberman confirmed that the Israeli government knew "at an early stage" of his Jewish citizenship.

The Israeli media were also aware that the slain journalist immigrated to Israel in 2005 and graduated in 2008 at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, eventually becoming a contributor for The Jerusalem Post and The Jerusalem Reporter before freelancing for Time and Foreign Policy magazines.

ISIS, the militant group that has been seizing territories in Syria and Iraq, released Tuesday a video of Sotloff's gruesome beheading. It called it retaliation against the United States for its continued military intervention.

It follows on a threat made last month after a similar beheading of another American journalist, James Foley. The recently released beheading footage threatens the life of a British aid worker who was abducted in March 2013.

The Sotloff family had kept Steven's captivity while government agencies attempted to gain his release. The family broke its silence within hours after U.S. intelligence officials authenticated the video.

Speaking for the Sotloff family, Barak Barfi, told reporters gathered around the Sotloff residence in Miami Wednesday:

""Today, we grieve. This week, we mourn. But we will emerge from this ordeal."

"We will not allow our enemies to hold us hostage with the sole weapons they possess, fear," Barfi added.

Days before Sotloff's beheading, his family released a video pleading with the militant group to release the journalist, reported CNN. ISIS supporters responded online with taunting remarks.

TagsISIS, ISIL, IS, Steven Stoloff, beheading