The Associated Press (AP) is being sued by plaintiffs affected by the October 7 massacre for knowingly supporting terrorism by purchasing photos from Hamas-linked journalists, including Gazans who participated in the October 7 massacre, the National Jewish Advocacy Center (NJAC) has announced.
The suit sought damages under the Anti-Terrorism Act and was filed to the Southern District of Florida on behalf of Israeli-Americans and Americans who were survivors, family members of victims, and those displaced by the attack.
The suit alleged that AP bought real-time photographs of the event, including those of hostages, from Hamas-affiliated Gazans. The NJAC, which is working with the plaintiffs’ legal team, contended that the AP ignored that some of the freelancers it paid had to have been participants in the cross-border raid, thereby aiding and abetting “Hamas in carrying out the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.”
AP said on Thursday that while it had the deepest sympathy for the victims of the Hamas attack, the lawsuit was baseless.
“AP had no advance knowledge of the October 7 attacks, nor have we seen any evidence – including in the lawsuit – that the freelance journalists who contributed to our coverage did,” said AP Vice President of Corporate Communications Lauren Easton.
Easton argued that the claims had originally come from NGO Honest Reporting on November 8, and they, too, had said that there was no evidence indicating the freelancers had prior knowledge of the massacre. She also said that the world would not know about the horrors of the massacre without AP and other news organizations.
“Allegations like this are reckless and create even more potential danger for journalists in the region,” said Easton.
NJAC director Mark Goldfeder said that the matter was not one of freedom of speech but of terror financing. The fact that the photojournalists were freelancers did not absolve AP, he continued. NJAC argued that AP had been warned well in advance about at least one of these journalists but ignored evidence such as three-year-old photographs of the man posing with Hamas Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar.
One of the journalists alleged to have Hamas connections is Hassan Eslaiah, who rode into Israel on the back of a motorbike with Hamas members. CNN hired Eslaiah after October 7 as a freelancer and did not have “any reason to doubt the journalistic accuracy of the work he has done for us,” as reported by The Jerusalem Post.
Eslaiah took several photos of the massacre, such as burning tanks, but also a room filled with blood and bodies.
Claimed ignorance
He claimed to have had no prior notice of the attack, however, the Post can verify that he posted to his Telegram channel 5:59 a.m. “We wake up to the great gifts of God. The spirit has returned, and our blessings have increased.”
This was a full half an hour before the attack began, throughout the morning he kept posting more messages and images from the massacre.
“When a news outlet allows itself to be leveraged as a platform to disseminate material aid and as a propaganda arm for identifiable terrorist elements, it becomes a participant in the ensuing events and subject to the same remedies and penalties as those they report on,” said Goldfeder & Terry senior counsel Bencion Schlager, who is also on the legal team.
“Foreign Terrorist Organization designations play a critical role in preventing and addressing global terrorism. Illicit activity which undermines the purpose of such designations needs to be brought to light and brought to justice.”
Another member of the legal team, Gabriel Groisman of LSN Law, said that AP has already been condemned by the public for its actions but that “we are a nation of laws, and we look forward to adjudicating these critical claims before a US District Court, as a way to bring some justice to those directly impacted by the vicious October 7 terror attacks.”
Two other journalists accused of being part of the October 7 massacre – Yousef Masoud and Samar Abu Elouf – won the George Polk Award from Long Island University on Thursday. Their employer, The New York Times, defended the decision to keep them on calling the allegations against them “vague.”