Hamas terrorists weren’t the only ones documenting deadly rampages and crimes in southern Israel on October 7. Some of their atrocities were captured by Gaza-based photojournalists working for the Associated Press and Reuters news agencies, whose early morning presence in the breached border region raises serious questions. The HonestReporting server informed about it.
Photojournalists captured, for example, the breaching of the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel. Given the level of secrecy of the entire event, the question arises as to how it is possible that the collaborators of the world’s major agencies found themselves on the border of the Gaza Strip during an ordinary Saturday morning.
Four names appear in AP photos from the Israel-Gaza border area on October 7: Hassan Eslaiah, Yousef Masoud, Ali Mahmud and Hatem Ali. Hassan Eslaiah, a freelancer who also works for CNN, crossed the border into Israel, photographed a burning Israeli tank, and then captured Palestinians entering Kibbutz Kfar Azza. The photographers’ names were later removed from some of the photos in the AP database.
HonestReporting obtained screenshots of Eslaiah’s now-deleted tweets on X documenting him standing in front of an Israeli tank. He was not wearing a news jacket or helmet, and the Arabic caption of his tweet read: “Live from inside Gaza settlements”.
Reuters published images of two photojournalists who also happened to be at the border just as Hamas was attacking there: Mohammed Fayq Abu Mostafa and Yasse Qudih. Both photographed a burning Israeli tank on the Israeli side of the border, but Abu Mustafa went further when he photographed a lynch mob brutalizing the body of an Israeli soldier pulled from the tank. Reuters added a graphic warning to the photo’s caption.
Israeli authorities have responded to speculation about the presence of professional photographers during the Hamas attack. The relevant department at the Prime Minister’s Office issued a statement that it takes with the utmost seriousness the fact that photojournalists cooperating with international media were involved in reporting on the brutal acts of murder committed by Hamas terrorists on Saturday, October 7.
According to the Israelis, these journalists became complicit in crimes against humanity, as their actions were contrary to professional ethics. On Thursday night, the government press office issued an urgent letter to the bureau chiefs of the media organizations that employed the photographers, asking them to explain the matter. The National Directorate of Public Diplomacy is also demanding that immediate action be taken.
Tags: photographers Gaza October Reports Hamas attack cast shadow world agencies
