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International news outlets deny photographers colluded with Hamas after report suggests they knew attack plans
(JTA) — International news outlets denied that photographers they hired had advance knowledge of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, after a report suggested without hard evidence that the journalists may have coordinated with the terror group ahead of the invasion.
But the Associated Press and CNN have said they will no longer work with one of the photographers named in the report, Hassan Eslaiah. The other publications named in the report are Reuters and The New York Times.
The report, by pro-Israel media watchdog Honest Reporting, said freelance photographers working with the four publications were at the scene in the early hours of the Hamas attack, saying their presence raised “ethical questions.”
It comes as dozens of journalists have been killed in the war, mostly in Gaza, and as reporters and photographers in the territory face scrutiny for their approach to the conflict. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 39 journalists have been killed since the start of the war, including 34 Palestinians, four Israelis and one Lebanese journalist. (Some have died in their homes and not while engaging in journalism.)
On Thursday, Sherif Mansour, the Committee to Protect Journalists’ Middle East and North Africa program coordinator, said in a statement that “journalists are civilians doing important work during times of crisis and must not be targeted by warring parties.”
But citing the Honest Reporting document, the Israeli Government Press Office said it “demands explanations” of the international outlets, adding that the “involvement of their photographers” in the attack “crosses every red line, professional and moral.” Israeli Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi wrote a letter to the news outlets, demanding they investigate possible collusion between the photographers and Hamas.
The report released on Wednesday, did not include concrete evidence of collusion. But it suggested the photographers knew ahead of time about the assault or “coordinated” with the attackers, since Hamas breached Israel’s border early on a Saturday morning when the journalists would likely not be working.
“Is it conceivable to assume that ‘journalists’ just happened to appear early in the morning at the border without prior coordination with the terrorists? Or were they part of the plan?” the report said, placing quotation marks around the word “journalists.”
“Even if they didn’t know the exact details of what was going to happen, once it unfolded did they not realize they were breaching a border?” the report added. “And if so, did they notify the news agencies?”
The four publications all denied that they coordinated with Hamas. Reuters said in a statement that it “categorically denies that it had prior knowledge of the attack or that we embedded journalists with Hamas.” AP said it “had no knowledge of the Oct. 7 attacks before they happened.” The New York Times called the allegations “untrue and outrageous.”
CNN told the Israeli publication Ynet it has not “found reason to doubt the journalistic accuracy of the work [Eslaiah] has done for us,” even as it cut ties with him.
The four photographers named in the report took pictures of a burning Israeli tank from which soldiers were killed or kidnapped, as well as attacks on Israeli homes and terrorists taking hostages and bodies back into Gaza.
HonestReporting, citing screenshots of deleted tweets, said Eslaiah posted footage of himself in front of a burning tank and photographed attacks on Kfar Aza, the scene of one of the worst massacres of the day. Eslaiah was not wearing a press vest or helmet to identify him as a member or the media, the report said.
Eslaiah, who works with CNN and AP, was also seen in an undated photograph with Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar that Honest Reporting shared after the report was released. Sinwar is kissing Eslaiah’s cheek in the image, suggesting that he was friendly with the terror group official in a way that crosses clear ethical lines in journalism.
And here is footage of Eslaiah after he crossed into Israel and took photos of a burning Israeli tank. He then captured infiltrators entering Kibbutz Kfar Azza.
Note that he is not identifiable as a member of the press. But AP & CNN deemed it acceptable to use his services. pic.twitter.com/fA0VI2df2i
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 8, 2023
Amit Segal, a prominent Israeli reporter, said Eslaiah appeared to hold a grenade while riding a motorcycle on the day of the attack in a video posted to Eslaiah’s Facebook page. His face is not clearly visible in the video.
Yo, @AP, @Reuters, @cnn – what your freelancer in Gaza Hassan Eslaiah is doing on a motorbike with a grenade, on his way to the massacre of women and babies? Is a grenade part of the equipment you provide? pic.twitter.com/jU85KEo7Ec
— עמית סגל Amit Segal (@amit_segal) November 9, 2023
The publications say they haven’t breached any journalistic ethics. Reuters said it had no prior relationship with the photographers before Oct. 7, though it did not elaborate on that, and said that their images were taken two hours after Hamas launched a rocket barrage against Israel. The terrorists breached the border shortly after the salvo.
AP said the first pictures it used had been taken more than an hour after the attack started.
The New York Times, which has worked with a different photographer named in the report, said, “It is reckless to make such allegations, putting our journalists on the ground in Israel and Gaza at risk.”
The Times drew fire from Israel supporters last month for rehiring a Gaza freelancer after finding out he made statements in support of Adolf Hitler. It also received criticism for initially reporting claims by Hamas that Israel bombed a hospital. Later assessments by Israel, the United States and a range of other governments and press outlets have found that a misfired Palestinian rocket was very likely the cause of the explosion.
The Times later said its early coverage of the incident “relied too heavily on claims by Hamas, and did not make clear that those claims could not immediately be verified,” said an Oct. 23 editor’s note. “The report left readers with an incorrect impression about what was known and how credible the account was.”
Pro-Palestinian activists have also criticized the Times, filling its lobby in a protest on Thursday that called for a ceasefire. According to a video posted to X, formerly known as Twitter, protesters held mock copies of the paper with the headline, “Ceasefire Now! Honoring Gaza’s dead — and fighting for the living.”
Israel has drawn criticism for not adequately protecting the lives of reporters covering the region’s violence. But on Thursday, Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s emergency war cabinet, wrote on social media that Israel would not make allowances for journalists who coordinated with Hamas.
“Journalists found to have known about the massacre, and still chose to stand as idle bystanders while children were slaughtered — are no different than terrorists and should be treated as such,” he wrote.
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Drexel University Professor Stole Signs From Synagogue, Police Say
Illustrative: People pass a cluster of signs outside a pro-Hamas encampment at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. on April 28, 2024. Photo: Max Herman via Reuters Connect
A Drexel University professor allegedly participated in a mass theft of items from a synagogue in a suburb outside Philadelphia, a local NBC affiliate reported on Tuesday.
Mariana Chilton, 56, a professor of health management and policy at Drexel, has been accused of stealing pro-Israel signs from the Main Line Reform Temple in Lower Merion Township, traveling there from her neighborhood of residency, Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. Chilton allegedly drove the getaway car while two other accomplices, Sarah Prickett and Sam Penn — who is from New York — trespassed the synagogue and absconded with the loot.
“We are just taking them because we feel like it is a representative of genocide,” Chilton told law enforcement after being caught in the act, the report stated. She then, after offering to “just put them back,” refused to identify herself and comply with other lawful orders.
Video evidence provided by a local resident placed Chilton and her accomplices at the scene of the crime, and a Main Line Reform Temple official identified the signs recovered from her car as the temple’s property. That was enough for law enforcement to charge her with several offenses, including conspiracy and theft. She is also charged with driving without a license and not registering her vehicle.
Drexel University has not responded to The Algemeiner‘s request for comment for this story.
Experts have told The Algemeiner in the past academic year that while the conduct of anti-Zionist students should be reported on, the role of faculty in fostering and engaging in antisemitic acts should be closely scrutinized. Last semester, anti-Zionist faculty attached themselves to anti-Israel, pro-Hamas demonstrations, sometimes breaking the law by preventing officers from dispersing unauthorized demonstrations and detaining lawbreakers.
At Northeastern University in Boston, professors formed a human barrier around a student encampment to stop its dismantling by officers, and at Columbia University, anti-Zionist faculty at the school, as well its affiliate Barnard College, staged a walkout in support of the demonstrations and demanded the abeyance of disciplinary sanctions against anti-Zionist students — dozens of whom cheered Hamas and threatened more massacres of Jews similar to Oct. 7 — who violated school rules.
Chilton’s case is unlike any other reported in the past year, however. While dozens of professors have been accused of abusing their Jewish students and encouraging their classmates to bully and shame them, none are alleged to have resorted to stealing from a Jewish house of worship to make their point.
Mass participation of faculty in pro-Hamas demonstrations marks an inflection point in American history, Asaf Romirowsky, an expert on the Middle East and executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, told The Algemeiner in April.
Since the 1960s, he explained, far-left “scholar activists” have gradually seized control of the higher education system, tailoring admissions processes and the curricula to foster ideological radicalism and conformity, which students then carry with them into careers in government, law, corporate America, and education. This system, he concluded, must be challenged.
“The cost of trading scholarship for political propagandizing has been a zeal and pride among faculty who esteem and cheer terrorism, a historical development which is quite telling and indicative of the evolution of the Marxist ideology which has been seeping into the academy since the 1960s,” Romirowsky said. “The message is very clear to all of us who are looking on from the outside at this, and institutions have to begin drawing a red line. The protests are not about free speech. They are about supporting terrorism, about calling for a genocide of Jews.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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White House Cites Biden Clash With Netanyahu Over Iran as Proof of President’s Mental Fitness
US President Joe Biden hosts the 2023 Teacher of the Year event at the White House in Washington, US, April 24, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
Amid growing concerns over US President Joe Biden’s mental fitness, key White House officials are suggesting his foreign policy discussions with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, including a clash over how to respond to Iran’s unprecedented military attack on the Israeli homeland earlier this year, serve as evidence that he is still capable of leading from the Oval Office.
Biden and Netanyahu engaged in a heated back-and-forth in the immediate aftermath of Iran launching a massive missile and drone salvo at Israel in April, according to a new report by the New York Times. The US and other allies helped Israel shoot down nearly every drone and missile. The attack caused only one injury.
However, the Times revealed that while Netanyahu initially wanted to respond to Iran in a forceful way, Biden threatened to withhold US support in the event of a major Israeli retaliatory strike, arguing it would risk sparking a regional conflict in the Middle East.
“Aides present in the Situation Room the night that Iran hurled a barrage of missiles and drones at Israel portrayed a president in commanding form, lecturing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by phone to avoid a retaliatory escalation that would have inflamed the Middle East,” the Times reported. “‘Let me be crystal clear,’ Mr. Biden said. ‘If you launch a big attack on Iran, you’re on your own.’”
“Mr. Netanyahu pushed back hard, citing the need to respond in kind to deter future attacks,” the report continued. “‘You do this,’ Mr. Biden said forcefully, ‘and I’m out.’ Ultimately, the aides noted, Mr. Netanyahu scaled back his response.”
Israel’s military response was small and appeared aimed at minimizing the risk of escalation.
The Times report, headlined “Biden’s Lapses Are Said to Be Increasingly Common and Worrisome,” came on the heels of Biden delivering a widely-panned presidential debate performance last Thursday against former US President Donald Trump. Biden’s performance, which oftentimes appeared incoherent and muddled, set off alarm bells in Democratic circles, sending the president’s allies scrambling to extinguish concerns over his age and mental acuity.
While highlighting rising concerns, the news story also noted instances in which, according to aides, Biden appeared coherent and capable, citing the exchange with Netanyahu and his handling of the Iranian missile attack more broadly as one such example.
However, an anonymous Biden administration official told the Times that they are unsure whether Biden could hold his own against adversarial foreign leaders such as Vladimir Putin of Russia.
On Wednesday, the White House directly attributed quotes to Netanyahu in which the Israeli premier reportedly said he found Biden “very clear and very focused” during his visit to Israel following the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas. According to a White House spokesperson, Netanyahu also reportedly cited the “more than a dozen phone conversations, extended conversations with President Biden” as evidence of the commander-in-chief’s vitality.
“Some White House officials adamantly rejected the suggestion of a president not up to handling tough foreign counterparts and told the story of the night Iran attacked Israel in April,” the New York Times reported. “Mr. Biden and his top national security officials were in the Situation Room for hours, bracing for the attack, which came around midnight. Biden was updated in real time as the forces he ordered into the region began shooting down Iranian missiles and drones. He peppered leaders with questions throughout the response.”
During its first direct attack on Israeli territory, Iran in April launched roughly 300 missiles and drones at the Jewish state.
Leading up to the attack, Iranian officials had promised revenge for an airstrike on Iran’s consulate in Damascus, Syria that they attributed to Israel. The strike killed seven members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), a widely designated terrorist organization, including two senior commanders. One of the commanders allegedly helped plan the Hamas terrorist group’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement in the incident.
“After it was over, and almost all of the missiles and drones had been shot down, Mr. Biden called Mr. Netanyahu to persuade him not to escalate. ‘Take the win,’” Mr. Biden told the prime minister, without reading from a script or extensive notes, according to two people in the room. In the end, Mr. Netanyahu opted for a much smaller and proportionate response that effectively ended the hostilities,” the article added.
Days later, Israel responded to the Iranian aggression by launching a modest missile attack on an airbase near Isfahan. The Jewish state sought to show that it could effectively target key strategic locations in Iran while not escalating the conflict any further. Netanyahu insisted on launching a retaliatory attack against Iran, arguing that ignoring the Iranian strikes would incentivize more attacks against the Jewish state.
IRGC Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh said that Iran is waiting for “the opportunity” to launch a new round of strikes against Israel, Iranian media reported on Tuesday, potentially boosting Netanyahu’s argument that a smaller response would invite further attacks.
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Journalist at US-Based Nonprofit Promoted Stabbing Israelis, Depicted Rescued Hostage as Pig Drinking Blood: Report
Palestinian terrorists ride an Israeli military vehicle that was seized by gunmen who infiltrated areas of southern Israel, in the northern Gaza Strip, Oct. 7, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ahmed Zakot
A journalist at a US-based nonprofit posted tutorials on how to commit stabbing attacks and depicted a rescued Israeli hostage as a pig drinking blood, according to newly surfaced social media posts.
Eitan Fischberger, a communications analyst and former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) staff sergeant who first broke the story on X/Twitter, alleged that Mahmoud Ajjour, a correspondent for The Palestine Chronicle, posted disturbing images and videos to his Instagram page.
Fischberger posted screenshots and screen recordings of the posts.
According to The Chronicle‘s website, Ajjour is a photojournalist and correspondent for the outlet, which is a US-based 501c3, or nonprofit organization.
One of the posted images depicted Noa Argamani — an Israeli who was kidnapped from the Nova music festival during Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in southern Israel, and then rescued in an IDF special operation last month — as a pig drinking blood from a Coca-Cola bottle.
Here, for example, Ajjour posted a picture of Israeli hostage Noa Argamani, portrayed as a pig drinking the blood of Palestinians.
Noa, as you recall, was freed by Israeli forces in the same rescue operation in which Ajjour’s terrorist colleague was killed pic.twitter.com/oiLCqekxbl
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) June 30, 2024
In Oct. 2015, Ajjour posted a picture of a masked Palestinian holding up a knife, with the caption, “I declare it a revolution.”
That time — from approximately Sept. 2015 to June 2016 — was referred to as the “knife intifada,” as there was an uptick in Palestinian terrorist attacks, particularly using knives, against Israelis in Jerusalem, along with other parts of Israel and the West Bank.
Ajjour also seems mighty fine endorsing stabbing attacks pic.twitter.com/xi2MnZVddl
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) June 30, 2024
During that same month, Ajjour also reportedly posted a two-part tutorial on how to carry out stabbings with the caption, “May Allah protect them,” likely referring to those who were engaging in such attacks.
So much, in fact, that he uploaded a two-part instruction video showing off some best practices for stabbing Israelis pic.twitter.com/Z12rVo4Enx
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) June 30, 2024
Then, in 2023, after the son of a Hamas preacher was killed when a device he was trying to launch at Israel exploded, Ajjour mourned his death on Instagram. “Your father’s legacy is proud of you,” he wrote alongside a picture that included what appeared to be a Hamas flag.
And here, Ajjour mourns the death of Bara’a al-Zard, son of Hamas preacher Wael al-Zard.
Silly Bara’a died in an explosion caused by a device he was trying to launch at Israeli forces near the Gaza security fencehttps://t.co/vZR6IW0shF pic.twitter.com/ipQw55BYd7
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) June 30, 2024
This is not the first time a journalist from The Palestine Chronicle was alleged to have either supported or partaken in terrorism.
Abdallah Aljamal, who was a correspondent for The Chronicle, allegedly held three Israeli hostages in his home, according to the Israeli government. He was killed during a raid that rescued four hostages, including Argamani. After the allegations came to light, The Chronicle changed Aljamal’s status on its website from a correspondent to a contributor.
The Palestine Chronicle did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Fichberger wrote that he wants the US House Ways and Means Committee to investigate The Chronicle for what seems to have become a pattern.
“If The Chronicle is let off the hook for employing an actual terrorist hostage-taker, it would prove that the American counter-terror legal apparatus really is irreparably broken,” he wrote.
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