A group of Israelis who survived the barbaric October 7 Hamas massacre are now suing the Associated Press over the organization’s alleged involvement in the attack. The suit was brought by the nonprofit National Jewish Advocacy Center and filed in the Southern District of Florida Wednesday night, reported the New York Post.
“There is no doubt that AP’s photographers participated in the October 7th massacre, and that AP knew, or at the very least should have known, through simple due diligence, that the people they were paying were longstanding Hamas affiliates and full participants in the terrorist attack that they were also documenting,” the lawsuit alleges.
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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.”
In November, the Israeli government revealed that a number of photo-journalists were directly involved in the October 7 attack. They were “embedded” among the terrorists and knew what was going to happen ahead of time, Israel charged. They took pictures of the attacks as they occurred and their images were used by news services like AP.
Mohammed Fayq Abu Mostafa and Yasser Qudih were two freelance photographers from Gaza whose pictures of the attacks were carried by Reuters.
The office of Israel’s Prime Minister issued a statement saying, “These journalists were accomplices in crimes against humanity. Their actions were contrary to professional ethics.”
Julie Pace, senior vice president and executive editor of the AP, responded to the charges at the time saying, “It was clear that morning from the first launch of missiles from Gaza into Israel that something serious was happening.”
“We carried out a very typical news-gathering process when a big event, a big moment, is happening and we need to figure out what it is and inform the world about it,” she added.
Mark Goldfeder, the director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, tweeted, “Media organizations have the absolute right to say whatever they want. But they do not have any special privileges when it comes to aiding and abetting and providing material support to an FTO like Hamas.
