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Broken Borders? Media Showcase Oct. 7 Pictures by Gaza Photojournalists as ‘Images of the Year’
The bodies of people, some of them elderly, lie on a street after they were killed during a mass-infiltration by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip, in Sderot, southern Israel, Oct. 7, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
Every December, media outlets select their best photos of the year to be included in collections showcasing what they deem to be their finest examples of photojournalism.
This year, however, The New York Times, Reuters, and the Associated Press chose to include in their prestigious photo galleries images taken by Gaza-based photojournalists whose early morning presence at the breached Gaza-Israel border on October 7 — and their capturing of Hamas atrocities — have raised serious ethical questions detailed in an HonestReporting expose. The article asked whether not only physical borders have been breached, but also professional and moral ones.
The publication of the article on November 8 created a public uproar, leading the AP and CNN to cut ties with one of the photojournalists whose close relations with Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar were highlighted.
Additionally, a group of 14 US state attorney generals warned the chiefs of CNN, The New York Times, Reuters, and AP, to better vet their freelancers lest they fall foul of laws against providing material support to terrorist organizations like Hamas.
But all of this hasn’t prevented America’s leading newspaper and the world’s largest news agencies from republishing some of the controversial photos taken by those freelancers — and celebrating their professional value.
“Brave photographers”
The New York Times’ photo gallery is titled: “A weary world,” and presents images from Ukraine to Hawaii. It makes the following statement:
Every year, our photo editors try to capture the best photojournalism in one intense presentation. The Year in Pictures is a way to commemorate the big news events from January to December: the ones that traumatized us — and there are many of those — mixed in with some moments of bliss.
Then it adds:
The images gathered here, a tribute to the brave photographers who scrambled into harm’s way to capture them, remind us that there were so many tears in 2023.
With this in mind, readers come across the following photo of the Gaza border fence being breached:
Despite ethical questions we raised about publishing photos by Gazan photojournalists who broke through the Israeli border on Oct. 7, @nytimes has no problem including this as one of its photos of the year – taken by Mohammed Fayq Abu Mostafa as the border fence is breached.… pic.twitter.com/wIvnBrPuys
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) December 24, 2023
Was the “brave photographer,” Reuters’ Mohammed Fayq Abu Mostafa, threatened by the infiltrators who had stormed the border to murder and rape Jews? Or did they let him capture his images uninterrupted? And is this a professional achievement to be celebrated?
Reuters selected a different image by the same photographer to be included in its gallery, titled “A selection of some of our top news photography from around the world in 2023”:
Note: The Algemeiner has censored the face of the dead Israeli soldier out of respect for his family.
The photographer was clearly able to operate unimpeded by the lynch mob and certainly contributed to the visual message Hamas wished to deliver that day by virtue of their own documenting of the massacre.
And what about the lack of respect shown by Reuters publishing a photo that displays a murdered Israeli soldier’s identifiable face and mutilated body to the world? Did anyone at Reuters seek the permission of the victim’s family? And again, is this the sort of journalism a respectable media outlet should be proud of?
“With ethics and compassion”
The AP followed suit. These words preface its 2023 photo gallery:
The mission of photojournalism is to capture moments that represent — and, at their best, truly reveal — the endless spectrum of the human experience.
Associated Press photographers across the world have spent 2023 doing exactly that — sometimes at great risk or personal exertion, always with ethics and compassion and quality, and with an eye forever trained toward the memorable.
When those photographers encounter the world, though — from Israel and Gaza to Brazil, from Mongolia to the American heartland and beyond — often they have no idea what they’ll find until it is upon them.
Included in AP’s gallery is the following photo by Ali Mahmud:
Did Mahmud realize what was upon him when he “encountered this world” of Hamas terrorists parading the body of German-Israeli Shani Louk? Was he surprised? Did he show any “ethics and compassion” by taking photos of her naked, mutilated body?
But why would any photographer make such considerations, when a picture like this successfully makes it into 2023’s photos of the year?
As stated in HonestReporting’s November 8 article, serious questions emerge from the mere fact that these photographers were positioned at the right place at the right time to capture the infiltrations and abductions.
The public still deserves answers. How did these freelancers know where and when to arrive, what did they communicate to their news editors, and what else might be stored on their camera cards?
It speaks volumes that CNN evidently decided not to include any of their photos in the network’s 2023 gallery.
Meanwhile, media hope to promote their brand and profit from publishing these photos, especially when marked with the quality stamp of “photos of the year.” Not to mention the burnished reputation and respect that the photojournalists themselves, who were paid for the job, again.
So what’s the editorial message of these photo galleries? Access is everything? There are no boundaries?
Based on this logic, can the footage taken by Hamas terrorists of their murderous spree in southern Israel also be considered a brave documentation of reality?
The post Broken Borders? Media Showcase Oct. 7 Pictures by Gaza Photojournalists as ‘Images of the Year’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
i24 News – Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that the government would establish an administration to encourage the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
“We are establishing a migration administration, we are preparing for this under the leadership of the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and Defense Minister [Israel Katz],” he said at a Land of Israel Caucus at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. “The budget will not be an obstacle.”
Referring to the plan championed by US President Donald Trump, Smotrich noted the “profound and deep hatred towards Israel” in Gaza, adding that “sources in the American government” agreed “that it’s impossible for two million people with hatred towards Israel to remain at a stone’s throw from the border.”
The administration would be under the Defense Ministry, with the goal of facilitating Trump’s plan to build a “Riviera of the Middle East” and the relocation of hundreds of thousands of Gazans for rebuilding efforts.
“If we remove 5,000 a day, it will take a year,” Smotrich said. “The logistics are complex because you need to know who is going to which country. It’s a potential for historical change.”
The post Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – The Knesset’s (Israeli parliament’s) Special Committee for Foreign Workers held a discussion on Sunday to examine the needs of wounded and disabled IDF soldiers and the response foreign caregivers could provide.
During the discussion, data from the Defense Minister revealed that the number of registered IDF wounded and disabled veterans rose from 62,000 to 78,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023. “Most of them are reservists and 51 percent of the wounded are up to 30 years old,” the ministry’s report said. The number will increase, the ministry assesses, as post-trauma cases emerge.
The committee chairwoman, Knesset member Etty Atiya (Likud), emphasized the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy for the wounded and to remove obstacles. “There is no dispute that the IDF disabled have sacrificed their bodies and souls for the people of Israel, for the state of Israel,” she said. Addressing the veterans, she continued: “And we, as public representatives and public servants alike, must do everything, but everything, to improve your lives in any way possible, to alleviate your pain and the distress of your family members who are no less affected than you.”
Currently, extensions are being given to the IDF veterans on a three-month basis, which Atiya said creates uncertainty and fear among the patients.
“The committee calls on the Interior Minister [Moshe Arbel] to approve as soon as possible the temporary order on our table, so that it will reach the approval of the Knesset,” she said, adding that she “intends to personally approach the Director General of the Population Authority [Shlomo Mor-Yosef] on the matter in order to promote a quick and stable solution.”
The post Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Sky News Arabia in Damascus, Syria in this handout picture released by the Syrian Presidency on August 8, 2023. Syrian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Over 1,300 people were killed in two days of fighting in Syria between security forces under the new Syrian Islamist leaders and fighters from ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect on the other hand, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday.
Since Thursday, 1,311 people had been killed, according to the Observatory, including 830 civilians, mainly Alawites, 231 Syrian government security personnel, and 250 Assad loyalists.
The intense fighting broke out late last week as the Alawite militias launched an offensive against the new government’s fighters in the coastal region of the country, prompting a massive deployment ordered by new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“We must preserve national unity and civil peace as much as possible and… we will be able to live together in this country,” al-Sharaa said, as quoted in the BBC.
The death toll represents the most severe escalations since Assad was ousted late last year, and is one of the most costly in terms of human lives since the civil war began in 2011.
The counter-offensive launched by al-Sharaa’s forces was marked by reported revenge killings and atrocities in the Latakia region, a stronghold of the Alawite minority in the country.
The post Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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