A Jewish advocacy group filed a lawsuit on Wednesday charging the Associated Press with “material support of terrorism,” asserting that the news wire made payments to known agents of Hamas.
The National Jewish Advocacy Center asserts that on and after October 7, the date of the Hamas massacre of over 1,200 Israelis, the AP paid for real-time images of the attacks being carried out by photographers who are “known associates” of the terrorist group. Included in the group of images were scenes of Israeli hostages being transported into Gaza, where many of them have since been killed.
“AP’s website gave credit to photographers Hassan Eslaiah, Yousef Masoud, Ali Mahmud and Hatem Ali, for taking photographs of the massacre inside of the State of Israel,” the federal lawsuit filed on behalf of the group by attorneys including David Schoen asserts. “These photojournalists are known Hamas associates who were gleefully embedded with the Hamas terrorists during the October 7th attacks, and who sometimes worked for AP.”
“Upon information and belief, AP paid for the real time images of Israeli hostages being taken into Gaza despite having been warned well in advance that at least one of these so-called ‘journalists’ were in fact Hamas affiliates, and despite the clear indications that they were functioning as full participants of the Hamas terrorist squad that conducted the October 7th attack, and not as AP chose to pretend as journalists,” it continues.
The group said in a press release on its lawsuit that the AP in communications with its attorneys has “flatly denied what has been established by demonstrable evidence.” The AP released a statement on Thursday calling the lawsuit “baseless.”
“The Associated Press has the deepest sympathy for those affected by the horrific Oct. 7 attacks in Israel,” AP spokeswoman Lauren Easton said. “At the same time, we must be clear that a lawsuit filed Wednesday against AP for its reporting on the attacks is baseless.”
“Documenting breaking news events around the world – no matter how horrific – is our job. Without AP and other news organizations, the world would not have known what was happening on Oct. 7,” Easton added.
The lawsuit states that the AP with “simple due diligence” could have determined that the “people they were paying were longstanding Hamas affiliates and full participants in the terrorist attack that they were also documenting.”
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“AP willfully chose to turn a blind eye to these facts, and instead profited from its terrorist photographer’s participation in the massacre through its publication of the ‘exclusive’ images, for which it certainly paid a premium, effectively funding a terrorist organization,” it asserts.
The group added in its press release that one of the journalists was even photographed being kissed by Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
“The AP was told long ago that at least one of the people they were paying was affiliated with Hamas, “ the National Jewish Advocacy Center said. “In fact, this arrangement was such an open secret that a picture one of their photographers posted three years ago of himself being kissed by the demented arch terrorist Sinwar has been widely displayed by the media.”
“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,” Bencion Schlager, one of the attorneys working on the case, stated.
Another attorney representing the plaintiffs, former Bal Harbour mayor Gabriel Groisman, said that the accusations against the AP must be adjudicated in federal court.
“Providing material support for a terror organization violates U.S. law and is morally repugnant,” Groisman said. “This Complaint holds the AP accountable for doing just that, by knowingly engaging a Hamas affiliated photographer who actively participated in Hamas’ barbaric attack, as set forth in detail in the Complaint.”
“The AP’s use of a Hamas photographer, who accompanied and celebrated the terrorists on October 7, brought immediate public condemnation when it came to light. However, we are a nation of laws and we look forward to adjudicating these critical claims before a U.S. District Court, as a way to bring some justice to those directly impacted by the vicious October 7 terror attacks,” Groisman added.
The accusations regarding the AP’s use of Hamas-affiliated photographers were first made by Honest Reporting, a media watchdog, last November. The AP at the time acknowledged the use of freelancers in Gaza, and stood by the practice.
“The role of the AP is to gather information on breaking news events around the world, wherever they happen, even when those events are horrific and cause mass casualties,” spokeswoman Nicole Meir told The Daily Wire. “AP uses images taken by freelancers around the world, including in Gaza.”