Did Journalists Collude With Hamas?

Gaza-based photojournalists working with the Associated Press, Reuters and cnn joined Hamas terrorists during the October 7 attacks, Honest Reporting claimed on November 8.

Journalist Hassan Eslaiah, a freelancer whose material was used by cnn and AP, accompanied terrorists into Israel and took photos of a burning Israeli tank and infiltrators entering the kibbutz Kfar Aza. A photo circulating on the Internet shows Eslaiah with Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

Right place, right time? Ali Mahmud and Hatem Ali, whose pictures were used by AP, claimed they just happened to be in the right place at the right time to capture abductions of Israelis. Mahmud shot a photo of the pickup truck parading the body of German-Israeli Shani Louk.

Reuters published pictures from photographers who were at the border during Hamas’s infiltration. One of them, Mohammed Fayq Abu Mostafa, took photos while a mob assaulted the lifeless body of an Israeli soldier pulled from a tank.

Journalism or barbarism? The presence of these photojournalists suggests severe ethical problems with journalism, especially since it is now clear Hamas planned this attack long in advance. Why were so many photographers ready to capture Hamas atrocities on what should have been a typical Saturday morning?

“Was it coordinated with Hamas? Did the respectable wire services, which published their photos, approve of their presence inside enemy territory, together with the terrorist infiltrators?” Honest Reporting asked. “[I]f their people on the ground actively or passively collaborated with Hamas to get the shots, they should be called out to redefine the border between journalism and barbarism” (emphasis added).

Journalists found to have known about the massacre, and still chose to stand as idle bystanders while children were slaughtered, are no different than terrorists and should be treated as such.
—Benny Gantz, member of the Israeli Knesset

Dangerous media: Although we can’t say with certainty that these photojournalists colluded with Hamas or could have warned Israeli authorities of the coming danger, the possibilities are alarming.

Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry has explained that the media’s corruption, lies, misinformation and radical-leftist agenda is a tremendously dangerous force. In 2004, he wrote in “The Deadly Left-Wing Media”:

The left-wing media blind many of our people to reality—the way things really are. The terrorist nations know that and use it to their benefit in a frightening way.