Yahya Sinwar, head of the Palestinian terror group Hamas in Gaza, in Gaza City on April 14, 2023. Photo: Yousef Masoud / SOPA Images/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect

The Associated Press sells photos by a Gazan photojournalist whom Israel identified as a Hamas terrorist, an HonestReporting investigation revealed on Tuesday, in what legal experts say may be considered material/financial support of a designated foreign terrorist organization in violation of US law that prohibits such conduct.

Hassan Eslaiah was targeted and wounded in an Israeli strike on southern Gaza in early April, with the IDF publicly identifying him as a member of the Hamas Khan Younis Brigade who has been posing as a journalist.

This should have come as no surprise to the AP, which officially cut ties with the Gazan freelancer after our November 2023 exposé of his infiltration into Israel during the October 7 massacre, which also brought to light a photo of former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar kissing him on the cheek.

However, the agency still offers for sale on its global platform more than 40 photos taken by Eslaiah inside Gaza during October-November 2023. Their prices range between 35 and 495 U.S. dollars.

HonestReporting has reached out to the AP for comment.

Hassan Eslaiah (r) with former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar (l)

Interestingly, Eslaiah’s specific photos of the October 7 atrocities inside Israel have been removed from the platform, which serves hundreds of news outlets worldwide.

Whether Eslaiah still gets royalties when his remaining photos are purchased is unclear, but the credit he gets on a respected news outlet is certainly a reputation booster. And either way, AP can still make money off of his propaganda for Hamas:

Legal Questions

Disturbingly, AP staff seem to have known about Eslaiah’s Hamas links years before October 7, 2023. According to documents released in a US lawsuit in early April, they were worried about his reliability since 2018, but still used his work.

The AP is also the only Western agency that still platforms Eslaiah’s tainted work. Reuters and Getty Images have removed his content due to HonestReporting’s public campaigns, which proved effective even before his confirmation as a Hamas member.

But now, the AP must explain and follow suit. This is no longer just an ethical violation, but possibly also a legal one, particularly if US authorities come to determine that Eslaiah is sufficiently connected to Hamas and/or acts of terrorism.

Legal experts told HonestReporting that in purchasing Eslaiah’s content, the AP may well be in direct violation of anti-terrorism laws or financial sanctions enforced by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). These laws prohibit transactions with entities or individuals that are on terrorism-related lists, and these regulations extend to payments for content or goods. Violation of OFAC sanctions has the potential to result in both civil and criminal penalties, including hefty fines and possible imprisonment. Purchasing the material and continuing to publish Eslaiah’s work, with direct attribution, may also be a violation of Section 2339B of Title 18 of the United States Code, which makes it a federal crime to knowingly provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization.

In December 2023, following HonestReporting’s exposure of photojournalists who infiltrated Israel on October 7, 14 state attorneys general wrote a letter to The New York Times, AP, CNN, and Reuters calling them out for using hires with ties to Hamas and reminding them that providing material support to terrorists and terror organizations is a crime.

The letter specifically mentions the case of Hassan Eslaiah and ends by calling on the media outlets to “ensure that you are taking all necessary steps to prevent your organizations from contracting with members of terror organizations. We urge you in the strongest terms to take care that your hiring practices conform to the laws forbidding material support for terror organizations.”

Subsequently, it may be time for US Attorney General Pam Bondi to take an interest.

The AP is based in New York. Will the Attorney General consider the possibility that, despite this warning, the AP may have been providing material support for a terrorist organization, even by continuing to feature the “work” of an alleged Hamas member who may have used it as a cover?

We think the answer is clear, if not legally, then morally. The AP should do the right thing, apologize, and remove all of Eslaiah’s content, unless they want to continue being associated with a terror-linked “journalist.”

HonestReporting is a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.

The post Exposed: The AP Sells Pictures By Photojournalist Identified as Hamas Terrorist, Kissed by Sinwar first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Illustrative Pro-Hamas protesters in Washington, DC, USA, on April 5, 2025. Photo: Robyn Stevens Brody/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect.

Antisemitism in academic medical centers located on college campuses is fostering noxious environments which deprive Jewish healthcare professionals of their civil right to work in spaces free from discrimination and hate, according to a new study by the StandWithUs Data & Analytics Department.

“Academia today is increasingly cultivating an environment which is hostile to Jews, as well as members of other religious and ethnic groups,” StandWithUs director of data and analytics and study co-author, Alexandra Fishman said on Monday in a press release. “Academic institutions should be upholding the integrity of scholarship, prioritizing civil discourse, rather than allowing bias or personal agendas to guide academic culture.”

Titled “Antisemitism in American Healthcare: The Role of Workplace Environment,” the study includes survey data showing that 62.8 percent of Jewish healthcare professionals employed by campus-based medical center reported experiencing antisemitism, a far higher rate than those working in private practice and community hospitals. Fueling the rise in hate, it added, were repeated failures of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) initiatives to educate workers about antisemitism, increasing, the report said, the likelihood of antisemitic activity.

“When administrators and colleagues understand what antisemitism looks like, it clearly correlates with less antisemitism in the workplace,” co-author and Yeshiva University professor Dr. Charles Auerbach said. “Recognition is a powerful tool — institutions that foster awareness create safer, more inclusive environments for everyone.”

Monday’s study is not StandWithUs first contribution to the study of antisemitism in medicine. In December, its Data & Analytics Department published a study which found that nearly 40 percent of Jewish American health-care professionals have encountered antisemitism in the workplace, either as witnesses or victims.

The study included a survey of 645 Jewish health workers, a substantial number of whom said they were subject to “social and professional isolation.” The problem left over one quarter of the survey cohort, 26.4 percent, “feeling unsafe or threatened.”

In some schools, Jewish faculty are speaking out.

In February, the Jewish Faculty Resilience Group (JFrg) at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) accused the institution in an open letter of “ignoring” antisemitism at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine (DGSOM),” charing that its indifference to the matter “continues to encourage more antisemitism.” JFrg added that discrimination at the Geffen medical school has caused demonstrable harm to Jewish students and faculty. Student clubs, it said, are denied recognition for arbitrary reasons; Jewish faculty whose ethnic backgrounds were previously unknown are purged from the payrolls upon being identified as Jews; and anyone who refuses to participate in anti-Zionist events is “intimidated” and pressured.

“DGSOM’s continued silence in the face of a sustained and deeply troubling rise in antisemitism within its own institution is not just complicity — it is a failure of responsibility,” the group said. “Without strong and principled leadership, this dangerous pattern will persist.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post New Study Exposes Antisemitism in University Medical Centers first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Israel’s representative to the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest, Yuval Raphael, holds an Israeli flag in this handout photo obtained by Reuters on Jan. 23, 2025. Photo: “The Rising Star,” Channel Keshet 12/Handout via REUTERS

More than 70 previous contestants of the Eurovision Song Contest on Monday demanded that Israel’s public broadcaster Kan should be banned from the international competition this year because of what they falsely claim is Israel’s “genocide” of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Singers, songwriters, musicians, lyricists and others from across Europe signed an open letter, published by Artists for Palestine UK, that was addressed to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organizes the Eurovision Song Contest. In their letter, the anti-Israel creatives urged the EBU to ban Kan, claiming that it is “complicit in Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza and the decades-long regime of apartheid and military occupation against the entire Palestinian people.”

“We believe in the unifying power of music, which is why we refuse to allow music to be used as a tool to whitewash crimes against humanity,” the open letter stated. The signatories urged EBU to “act now and prevent further discredit and disruption to the festival.”

“Silence is not an option,” they added. “We therefore join together to state that the EBU’s complicity with Israel’s genocide must stop. By continuing to platform the representation of the Israeli state, the EBU is normalizing and whitewashing its crimes … Israel must be excluded from Eurovision.”

The former Eurovision contestants also said that they were “appalled” by the EBU’s decision last year to include Kan in the competition during the Israel-Hamas war.

“The result was disastrous,” they said about the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest. “Rather than acknowledging the widespread criticism and reflecting on its own failures, the EBU responded by doubling down — granting total impunity to the Israeli delegation while repressing other artists and delegations, making the 2024 edition the most politicized, chaotic and unpleasant in the competition’s history.”

During last year’s competition, Israeli singer Eden Golan was booed on stage by anti-Israel audience members, faced death threats, had a anti-Israel Eurovision jury member refuse to give her points, and was forced to conceal her identity outside of the competition for her own safety.

Those who signed Monday’s open letter also accused the EBU of a “double standard” in regards to Israel. They criticized the EBU for expelling Russia’s public broadcaster from the competition in 2022, because of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine that year, but still allowing Israel to participate in the song contest amid the Israel-Hamas war that started after the deadly Hamas terrorist attack on Oct. 7, 2023.

“[It] can’t be one rule for Russia and a completely different rule for Israel. You bomb, you’re out,” said former Eurovision contestant Thea Garrett, who represented Malta in 2010.

“I believe that the Israeli government has been and is inflicting genocide on the people of Palestine and for that reason Israel should be barred from competing in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest,” added Charlie McGettigan, who won the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest for Ireland.

The open letter was signed by creatives from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Finland, France, Iceland, Malta, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Turkey. The national broadcasters in Iceland, Slovenia and Spain have previously expressed opposition to Israel’s participation in the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest.

The open letter was published the same day that Israel’s Eurovision representative this year, singer Yuval Raphael, traveled to Basel, Switzerland, to compete in the song contest. Raphael, who is a survivor of the Nova Music Festival massacre on Oct. 7, 2023, will compete in the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest with the song “New Day Will Rise,” a ballad written by singer and songwriter Keren Peles. She will perform in the second semi-final on May 15 and, if she advances, will compete in the Eurovision Song Contest grand final on May 17.

The post Dozens of Former Eurovision Contestants Pressure Organizers to Ban Israel From 2025 Song Contest first appeared on Algemeiner.com.