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Gaza Photojournalists: Media Fail to Address Their Own Ethics and Morals
An aerial view shows the bodies of victims of an attack following a mass infiltration by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip lying on the ground in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, in southern Israel, Oct. 10, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ilan Rosenberg
HonestReporting’s expose on the Gaza photojournalists who infiltrated Israel on October 7 has caught the attention of the global media. As the story spread, however, so did the pushback, including attacks on HonestReporting’s integrity and various charges from some of the media outlets we’d asked questions of.
But first, some background. It’s no secret that there are some very bad actors within the Palestinian media community. In 2022, HonestReporting’s investigative work exposed several journalists covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as being virulent and unapologetic antisemites.
As a result of our reporting, several mainstream media outlets decided to cut ties with these reporters, at least indicating that there are red lines when it comes to media ethics and morality.
That was the point of our most recent story. We set out to shine a light on the conversation surrounding the media’s use of Palestinian stringers who, at best, operate in an environment controlled by Hamas, and at worst, are active accomplices.
And we did it not only in our role as a media monitoring organization. We approached it as Israelis. As Jews. As human beings. Because it’s impossible to separate anything from the horrific events of October 7, which appear to have faded so rapidly from the collective memory of the outside world and the media.
For Israelis, October 7 is an open and gaping wound, which is why, when we looked at photographs on an Associated Press carousel embedded in an online story last week, we were horrified and disgusted.
We were horrified to see images of a burning Israeli tank on the Israeli side of a border that had been breached by Hamas terrorists and, as it turned out, many “fellow travelers” who accompanied them. Disgusted to see that some of these images, including at least one of the body of German-Israel Shani Louk lying in the back of a truck, were attributed to Gaza photojournalists who were paid by media outlets for their images — images that could only have been captured inside Israel as the massacre was taking place.
There were so many unanswered questions and we decided to put them into the public sphere.
The Media Fire Back
The reaction to our story was swift. More damning evidence started to emerge, particularly concerning Hassan Eslaiah, one of the four Gaza photojournalists we’d flagged as being inside Israel. AP and CNN took steps to sever ties with him.
All of the media outlets involved — AP, CNN, Reuters, and The New York Times — publicly stated they had no prior knowledge of what was to occur on the morning of October 7. HonestReporting had not, however, accused any of those outlets of such an incomprehensibly appalling crime.
The New York Times doubled down in its backing of freelancer Yousef Masoud. Further question marks remain over Masoud’s explanation that he’d been woken up at 5.30 am by rocket fire even though the firing only started an hour later. This is unsurprising, given their backing of a decision to rehire Gazan freelance filmmaker Soliman Hijjy, despite HonestReporting previously revealing how he had praised Hitler on social media.
Hey @nytimes, do you have an explanation as to how Yousef Masoud was woken by rockets “shortly after 5:30 a.m. on Saturday morning” when they hadn’t been fired yet? The first rockets were fired around an hour later at 6:30 a.m.https://t.co/TF6IPewAB0
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 10, 2023
Safety of the Media?
Reuters also responded, releasing a statement claiming that HonestReporting had jeopardized the safety of all media working in Israel and the Palestinian territories. This is a deliberate attempt to deflect from the real issues we raised.
Those of us living in Israel during the Second Intifada of the early 2000s will remember the antagonism surrounding the international media coverage at the time. But lynch mobs of angry Israelis were not something that foreign journalists had to contend with. Nor is it likely to be an occupational hazard today.
The real danger to life is not to journalists, but rather to Israelis and Jews around the world as a result of inflammatory reporting by those very media outlets that are now trying to portray themselves as victims.
The most prominent example of this was the media’s rush to charge Israel with carrying out an airstrike on the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza. This had very real consequences for Jewish communities now being subjected to rising antisemitism in the US, UK, Europe, Australia, and elsewhere.
As media coverage inflames such sentiments, how dare the media complain about their own safety from the comfort of the Jewish state? Israel is a highly prized posting for foreign journalists where they can operate under the freedom of the press and take advantage of all the perks that living in Israel brings. The angry statements of some Israeli officials and media influencers in the aftermath of our story pale into insignificance compared to the dangers posed by the terrorist regime that rules the Gaza Strip.
Let’s consider what would have happened had it been Israeli journalists covering the massacre on the scene. Let’s assume they would be dressed in protective press vests making them identifiably members of the media.
Would Hamas terrorists have treated them any differently to the Israelis they brutalized that day? Would press credentials have protected them from death or kidnap? We know the probable answer.
Those Gaza photojournalists who infiltrated on October 7 were not under threat from Hamas. Because they were Gazans. Because they were considered to be on the same side. And because Hamas itself went to great lengths to document their crimes. Allowing those photojournalists to be there to capture events was completely in keeping with Hamas’ modus operandi that day. Whether they intended to or not, those photojournalists became part of the story.
We can only begin to imagine what images are still sitting on memory cards that were not offered to press agencies. Indeed, we’ve already had a taste of Hassan Eslaiah’s social media, as revealed in the Jerusalem Post, which described a video with his watermark: “Filmed by Hassan Eslaiah” in the center, depicting a room full of dead, bloody bodies.
Items on Gazan photojournalist Hassan Eslaiah’s Telegram indicate that not only did he likely know about the planned massacre before it began, but that he supported the deaths of the innocent Israelis he watched being murdered – via @Jerusalem_Post. https://t.co/qC2cYcf592
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 12, 2023
Despite what some media are trying to push, this is not a story about the safety of the press but of media ethics and transparency. There are clear complications surrounding freedom of the press in Gaza. While international news agencies want to work with local Gaza photojournalists or other Palestinian stringers, they owe their readers transparency. It needs to be made clear that these media workers are not operating under the same conditions as their Israeli counterparts and are potentially subject to external pressures, including an environment where anti-Israeli incitement is normalized. If the foreign media are so quick to call into question, to the point of open disdain, the information that the IDF or Israeli government provides, why are Palestinian sources not subject to the same level of cynicism, particularly when it is so clear who is ultimately in control of the narrative coming out of Gaza?
HonestReporting asked important questions. We don’t yet have all of the answers. But we’ve opened the discussion and it’s now up to the international media to get constructively involved rather than attempting to muddy the waters. It’s not only Israelis and Jews who deserve better but every media consumer today.
The post Gaza Photojournalists: Media Fail to Address Their Own Ethics and Morals first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Trump Proposes Resettlement of Gazans as Netanyahu Visits White House
US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meet at the White House in Washington, DC, US, Feb. 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday proposed the resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza to neighboring countries, calling the enclave a “demolition site” and saying residents have “no alternative” as he held critical talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House.
“[The Palestinians] have no alternative right now” but to leave Gaza, Trump told reporters before Netanyahu arrived. “I mean, they’re there because they have no alternative. What do they have? It is a big pile of rubble right now.”
Trump repeated his call for Egypt, Jordan, and other Arab states in the region to take in Palestinians from Gaza after nearly 16 months of war there between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which ruled the enclave before the war and remains the dominant faction.
Arab leaders have adamantly rejected Trump’s proposal. However, Trump argued on Tuesday that Palestinians would benefit from leaving Gaza and expressed astonishment at the notion that they would want to remain.
“Look, the Gaza thing has not worked. It’s never worked. And I feel very differently about Gaza than a lot of people. I think they should get a good, fresh, beautiful piece of land. We’ll get some people to put up the money to build it and make it nice and make it habitable and enjoyable,” Trump said.
Referring to Gaza as a “pure demolition site,” the president said he doesn’t “know how they [Palestinians] could want to stay” when asked about the reaction of Palestinian and Arab leaders to his proposal.
“If we could find the right piece of land, or numerous pieces of land, and build them some really nice places, there’s plenty of money in the area, that’s for sure,” Trump continued. “I think that would be a lot better than going back to Gaza, which has had decades and decades of death.”
However, Trump clarified that he does “not necessarily” support Israel permanently annexing and resettling Gaza.
Trump later made similar remarks with Netanyahu at his side in the Oval Office, suggesting that Palestinians should leave Gaza for good “in nice homes and where they can be happy and not be shot, not be killed.”
“They are not going to want to go back to Gaza,” he said.
Trump did not offer any specifics about how a resettlement process could be implemented.
The post-war future of Palestinians in Gaza has loomed as a major point of contention within both the United States and Israel. The former Biden administration emphatically rejected the notion of relocating Gaza civilians, demanding a humanitarian aid “surge” into the beleaguered enclave.
Trump has previously hinted at support for relocating Gaza civilians. Last month, the president said he would like to “just clean out” Gaza and resettle residents in Jordan or Egypt.
Steve Witkoff, the US special envoy to the Middle East, defended Trump’s comments in a Tuesday press conference, arguing that Gaza will remain uninhabitable for the foreseeable future.
“When the president talks about ‘cleaning it out,’ he talks about making it habitable,” Witkoff said. “It is unfair to have explained to Palestinians that they might be back in five years. That’s just preposterous.
Trump’s comments were immediately met with backlash, with some observers accusing him of supporting an ethnic cleansing plan. However, proponents of the proposal argue that it could offer Palestinians a better future and would mitigate the threat posed by Hamas.
Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists started the Gaza war on Oct. 7, 2023, when they invaded southern Israel, murdered 1,200 people, and kidnapped 251 hostages back to Gaza while perpetrating widespread sexual violence in what was the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
Last month, both sides reached a Gaza ceasefire and hostage-release deal brokered by the US, Egypt, and Qatar.
Under phase one of the agreement, Hamas will, over six weeks, free a total of 33 Israeli hostages, eight of whom are deceased, and in exchange, Israel will release over 1,900 Palestinian prisoners, many of whom are serving multiple life sentences for terrorist activity. Meanwhile, fighting in Gaza will stop as negotiators work on agreeing to a second phase of the agreement, which is expected to include Hamas releasing all remaining hostages held in Gaza and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the enclave.
The ceasefire and the future of Gaza were expected to be key topics of conversation between Trump and Netanyahu, along with the possibility of Israel and Saudi Arabia normalizing relations and Iran’s nuclear program.
Riyadh has indicated that any normalization agreement with Israel would need to include an end to the Gaza war and the pathway to the formation of a Palestinian state.
However, perhaps the most strategically important subject will be Iran, particularly how to contain its nuclear program and combat its support for terrorist proxies across the Middle East. In recent weeks, many analysts have raised questions over whether Trump would support an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, which both Washington and Jerusalem fear are meant to ultimately develop nuclear weapons.
Netanyahu on Tuesday was the first foreign leader to visit the White House since Trump’s inauguration last month.
The post Trump Proposes Resettlement of Gazans as Netanyahu Visits White House first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Trump Reimposes ‘Maximum Pressure’ on Iran, Aims to Drive Oil Exports to Zero
US President Donald Trump speaks at the White House, in Washington, DC, Feb. 3, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday restored his “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran that includes efforts to drive its oil exports down to zero in order to stop Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Ahead of his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump signed the presidential memorandum reimposing Washington’s tough policy on Iran that was practiced throughout his first term.
As he signed the memo, Trump described it as very tough and said he was torn on whether to make the move. He said he was open to a deal with Iran and expressed a willingness to talk to the Iranian leader.
“With me, it’s very simple: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said. Asked how close Tehran is to a weapon, Trump said: “They’re too close.”
Iran‘s mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump has accused former President Joe Biden of failing to rigorously enforce oil-export sanctions, which Trump says emboldened Tehran by allowing it to sell oil to fund a nuclear weapons program and armed militias in the Middle East.
Iran is “dramatically” accelerating enrichment of uranium to up to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90 percent weapons-grade level, the UN nuclear watchdog chief told Reuters in December. Iran has denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon.
Trump‘s memo, among other things, orders the US Treasury secretary to impose “maximum economic pressure” on Iran, including sanctions and enforcement mechanisms on those violating existing sanctions.
It also directs the Treasury and State Department to implement a campaign aimed at “driving Iran‘s oil exports to zero.” US oil prices pared losses on Tuesday on the news that Trump planned to sign the memo, which offset some weakness from the tariff drama between Washington and Beijing.
Tehran’s oil exports brought in $53 billion in 2023 and $54 billion a year earlier, according to US Energy Information Administration estimates. Output during 2024 was running at its highest level since 2018, based on OPEC data.
Trump had driven Iran‘s oil exports to near-zero during part of his first term after re-imposing sanctions. They rose under Biden’s tenure as Iran succeeded in evading sanctions.
The Paris-based International Energy Agency believes Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other OPEC members have spare capacity to make up for any lost exports from Iran, also an OPEC member.
PUSH FOR SANCTIONS SNAPBACK
China does not recognize US sanctions and Chinese firms buy the most Iranian oil. China and Iran have also built a trading system that uses mostly Chinese yuan and a network of middlemen, avoiding the dollar and exposure to US regulators.
Kevin Book, an analyst at ClearView Energy, said the Trump administration could enforce the 2024 Stop Harboring Iranian Petroleum (SHIP) law to curtail some Iranian barrels.
SHIP, which the Biden administration did not enforce strictly, allows measures on foreign ports and refineries that process petroleum exported from Iran in violation of sanctions. Book said a move last month by the Shandong Port Group to ban US-sanctioned tankers from calling into its ports in the eastern Chinese province signals the impact SHIP could have.
Trump also directed his UN ambassador to work with allies to “complete the snapback of international sanctions and restrictions on Iran,” under a 2015 deal between Iran and key world powers that lifted sanctions on Tehran in return for restrictions on its nuclear program.
The US quit the agreement in 2018, during Trump‘s first term, and Iran began moving away from its nuclear-related commitments under the deal. The Trump administration had also tried to trigger a snapback of sanctions under the deal in 2020, but the move was dismissed by the UN Security Council.
Britain, France, and Germany told the United Nations Security Council in December that they are ready — if necessary — to trigger a snapback of all international sanctions on Iran to prevent the country from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
They will lose the ability to take such action on Oct. 18 when a 2015 UN resolution expires. The resolution enshrines Iran‘s deal with Britain, Germany, France, the United States, Russia, and China that lifted sanctions on Tehran in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear program.
Iran‘s UN ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani, has said that invoking the “snap-back” of sanctions on Tehran would be “unlawful and counterproductive.”
European and Iranian diplomats met in November and January to discuss if they could work to defuse regional tensions, including over Tehran’s nuclear program, before Trump returned.
The post Trump Reimposes ‘Maximum Pressure’ on Iran, Aims to Drive Oil Exports to Zero first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Trump Stops US Involvement With UN Rights Body, Extends UNRWA Funding Halt
An UNRWA aid truck at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. Photo: Reuters/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday ordered an end to US engagement with the United Nations Human Rights Council and continued a halt to funding for the UN Palestinian relief agency UNRWA.
The move coincides with a visit to Washington by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has long been critical of UNRWA, accusing it of anti-Israel incitement and its staff of being “involved in terrorist activities against Israel.”
During Trump‘s first term in office, from 2017-2021, he also cut off funding for UNRWA, questioning its value, saying that Palestinians needed to agree to renew peace talks with Israel, and calling for unspecified reforms.
The first Trump administration also quit the 47-member Human Rights Council halfway through a three-year term over what it called chronic bias against Israel and a lack of reform. The US is not currently a member of the Geneva-based body. Under former President Joe Biden, the US served a 2022-2024 term.
A council working group is due to review the US human rights record later this year, a process all countries undergo every few years. While the council has no legally binding power, its debates carry political weight and criticism can raise global pressure on governments to change course.
Since taking office for a second term on Jan. 20, Trump has ordered that the US withdraw from the World Health Organization and from the Paris climate agreement — also steps he took during his first term in office.
The US was UNRWA’s biggest donor — providing $300 million-$400 million a year — but Biden paused funding in January 2024 after Israel accused about a dozen UNRWA staff of taking part in the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Palestinian terrorist group Hamas that triggered the war in Gaza.
The US Congress then formally suspended contributions to UNRWA until at least March 2025.
The United Nations has said that nine UNRWA staff may have been involved in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack and were fired. A Hamas commander in Lebanon — killed in September by Israel — was also found to have had a UNRWA job.
An Israeli ban went into effect on Jan. 30 that prohibits UNRWA from operating on its territory or communicating with Israeli authorities. UNRWA has said operations in Gaza and West Bank will also suffer.
The post Trump Stops US Involvement With UN Rights Body, Extends UNRWA Funding Halt first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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