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Shocking Revelation: Gaza Photojournalists Shared Call to Infiltrate Israel on Oct. 7

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

A Gaza photojournalist working for the international media called on residents of the coastal enclave to cross the border into Israel on October 7, after Hamas terrorists had breached it, an HonestReporting investigation has found.

Mohammed Fayq Abu Mostafa, a freelancer who has been working for Reuters, made the comments while excitedly displaying footage of Hamas atrocities on an Instagram Live hosted in Gaza by another photojournalist, Ashraf Amra.

Amra has been working for AP, Reuters, and APA Images, as well as for Turkish agency Anadolu. The investigation also found Amra had been honored with kisses by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on two previous occasions.

The revelation casts doubt on the journalistic impartiality of the two freelance photojournalists and the vetting procedures of media outlets that have relied on their work.

The following information was compiled based on a probe of Amra’s and Abu Mostafa’s social media accounts. We also looked at articles and visuals published online and checked image databases of relevant media outlets.

“Whoever Can Go — Go”

On October 7, Amra hosted an Instagram Live from Khan Younis to provide updates following Hamas’ deadly cross-border assault on Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and some 240 taken hostage.

During the broadcast, Amra willingly let a thrilled Abu Mostafa, who had just returned from Israeli territory, display the brutal acts that he had captured on his phone at the breached border area.

Amra can be seen laughing and smiling while Abu Mostafa presented footage of the lynching of an Israeli soldier:

 

Abu Mostafa went on to say: “We were there two hours ago, since the beginning.”

He detailed what he saw at the border and deep inside Israel, in Sderot. He described breaking into a room where Israelis were hiding before being taken by Hamas terrorists.

He then called on people to cross into the sovereign Jewish state: “Advice, whoever can go — go. It is a one-time event that will not happen again.”

And Amra replies: “Really, it will not repeat itself.”

 

Abu Mostafa’s border photos, one of which seems to show the lynching he had shared on Amra’s Live, were recently selected by Reuters and The New York Times to be included in their 2023 “Images of the Year.”

Amra was also at the border earlier in the day. In the Instagram Live he said:

I just returned from the Khuza’a area, near the Khuza’a area on the eastern border of the Gaza Strip. Tens of armed Palestinian men are constantly storming the border toward the settlements around Gaza.

Some media outlets published a photo credited to “Ashraf Amra/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images,” showing a digger breaching the border fence. Reuters selected another photo by Amra, taken on October 7 inside Gaza, as one of its “Pictures of the Month” for October 2023.

In November, HonestReporting published an expose that raised serious ethical questions regarding the early morning presence of Gaza photojournalists — including Abu Mostafa — at the breached Gaza-Israel border on October 7.

We questioned the morality and professionalism of those photojournalists who appeared to accompany Hamas terrorists on their rampage and inquired as to what level of knowledge these freelancers had prior to the Hamas infiltration, asking whether it was only physical borders that were breached.

Now, the exposure of a journalist who proudly proclaims he has been at the border “since the beginning” — coupled with his call to infiltrate Israel while displaying Hamas atrocities — crosses more boundaries. Particularly when he had been given the platform to do so by another fellow journalist, who was happy to share it with his 188K Instagram followers.

Kissed By Haniyeh

Amra’s willingness to utilize his social media channel in this manner may be explained by the special personal treatment he has received from Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

In mid-September, the terror group leader paid a visit to Amra who was being treated for a hand injury in an Istanbul hospital.

Amra had been injured while covering Gaza border riots (without a press vest), and he blamed Israeli troops for targeting him.

In the photos and videos published after the meeting, Haniyeh is seen kissing Amra’s cheeks and arm cast.

 

According to media reports, Haniyeh told Amra during the visit that he appreciated his role and that of the Palestinian media in exposing “the crimes of the occupation.” Amra replied that the injury won’t prevent him from returning to his “national role.”

The high-profile hospital visit was not the first time Haniyeh had honored the veteran photojournalist, to whom he presented an award back in 2012:

Does Haniyeh provide such VIP treatment to every Gaza-based journalist who may have been injured while working? What is the nature of his connection with Amra? Does it explain Amra’s easy access to coverage of Hamas leadership and training in Gaza?

Interestingly, according to the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, Amra has also been working alongside Hassan Eslaiah, a freelance photojournalist whose infiltration into Israel and close ties with Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar were detailed in HonestReporting’s expose in November. Subsequently, AP and CNN cut ties with Eslaiah.

All of the above should sound the alarm bells for news organizations and their audiences worldwide.

The exhilaration at the display of Hamas atrocities, along with the sharing of a call to infiltrate Israel, where Hamas had been brutalizing, raping, and murdering innocent Israelis on October 7, are appalling in their own right.

So is the flattery their actions earned from the head of a genocidal terror organization.

There are serious questions for the international media outlets who prominently showcased these photojournalists’ work:

Did they vet Amra and Abu Mostafa before publishing their work?
Were any outlets aware of the photojournalists’ social media activity and of Amra’s recognition by the leader of a proscribed terror group?
What exactly are their vetting procedures for freelancers in Gaza?
And, if there are different codes of conduct for freelancers vs. permanent staff, then why isn’t that disclosed on every article that a freelancer works on?

A commitment to journalistic ethics should prompt the news organizations we have named to answer these very basic questions.

And basic humanity should compel them to answer these questions.

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 Shocking Revelation: Gaza Photojournalists Shared Call to Infiltrate Israel on Oct. 7 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Jewish Woman Wearing Israeli Flag Attacked in Copenhagen

Copenhagen, Denmark. Photo: Furya via Wikimedia Commons.

A Jewish woman wearing an Israeli flag was almost “lynched” in an antisemitic attack in Copenhagen, Denmark, last week.

According to the Danish newspaper BT, the 39-year-old woman was riding her scooter through the Christiania neighborhood in the Danish capital on Friday night, wearing an Israeli flag, when a man dressed in black approached her and asked her if she was Jewish.

After the victim said yes, the assailant reportedly asked, “Are you proud of that?” and then called her a “child murderer,” she told BT.

While she was calling the police, another man appeared and told her to throw away her Israeli flag.

“Before I could even get answers from the police, things escalated further,” the woman said. “Suddenly, a group of men rushed towards me.”

“A strong man with a Middle Eastern appearance shouted at me to take off the flag immediately,” she recalled.

When she refused to throw away her flag, the group of men started tearing it apart. According to her testimony, there were at least 50 bystanders who watched the attack without intervening.

“When I screamed for help, one of the men smiled mockingly and said, ‘Nobody will help you here.’ Then he grabbed me by the throat and started choking me with his hands,” the woman recounted.

“One of them pulled the flag over my head so I couldn’t see what was happening. I kept shouting for help, but no one intervened,” she continued. “Then they started dragging me off the asphalt.”

The woman also said one of the assailants cut off her jacket with a knife. When she tried to call the police again, the group of men allegedly began taunting her and calling her a “Jewish whore.”

“When I finally got through to the police, the policeman didn’t ask if I was OK,” she said. “Instead, he asked me why I was carrying an Israeli flag in an area like Christiania. I felt completely abandoned.”

“I had to beg and convince him that I was in extreme danger,” she continued. “Finally, he agreed to send two female officers.”

Local police confirmed they have opened an investigation into the antisemitic attack after receiving a report about the incident.

According to BT, the victim was left with scratches and bruises on her body after being discharged from the hospital.

In an interview with Israel Hayom, the woman said she usually displays her Jewishness, hanging an Israeli flag on her balcony and wearing her Star of David at work as a nurse.

“The patients notice it immediately; sometimes I see their faces contort. But this is my identity, and I don’t intend to hide it,” she said.

However, the woman recently noticed a much more hostile reaction to her displays of Jewishness in her daily routine.

“People look at me differently,” she told Israel Hayom. “A week ago, someone called me a ‘Zionist s–t.’ Others refused to talk to me because I’m Jewish. I could live with that — as long as it didn’t turn into physical violence.”

She said this was her first experience of such violence.

“They broke my phone and tried to tear up the flag. I almost got lynched,” she recalled. “I was afraid they would burn it, so I held on to it with all my strength.”

“They shouted ‘Free Palestine’ at me … It was so humiliating.”

Mikkel Bjørn, a member of the Danish Parliament for the Danish People’s Party, condemned the attack in a post on X.

“A Jewish woman is brutally attacked in Christiania by a group of men with a Middle Eastern background. Spit on, called a ‘child murderer,’ choked and dragged along the ground while 50 people watched and laughed. No one helps. Is this the import of hatred we want to accept in Denmark?” Bjorn wrote.

The post Jewish Woman Wearing Israeli Flag Attacked in Copenhagen first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Iran, China, Russia Call for End to ‘Unlawful Sanctions’ Amid Tensions With US Over Tehran’s Nuclear Program

From left to right: Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu, and Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi pose for a photo as they meet with reporters after their meeting at Diaoyutai State Guest House on March 14, 2025, in Beijing, China. Photo: Lintao Zhang/Pool via REUTERS

China and Russia have called for an end to the “unlawful sanctions” imposed on Iran, as the three nations expand their cooperation amid growing Western pressure over Tehran’s nuclear program.

During a meeting in Beijing on Friday, China’s Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi, and Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov discussed areas of cooperation and the Iranian nuclear program, expressing solidarity over a range of issues.

In a joint statement, the three countries emphasized the “necessity of terminating all unlawful unilateral sanctions,” seemingly referring to US and other Western economic penalties imposed on Iran’s imports and exports as an attempt to prevent the country from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

They called on all “relevant parties to refrain from taking any action that would escalate the situation” and undermine diplomatic efforts, stating that dialogue based on “mutual respect” is the only viable option.

The countries also “emphasized that the relevant parties should be committed to addressing the root causes of the current situation and abandoning sanction, pressure, or threat of force,” calling such actions “unacceptable” and highlighting the risks of regional escalation and environmental disaster.

In their statement, Russia and China praised Iran’s purported commitment to comply with its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Safeguards Agreement to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.

After their meeting, Beijing and Moscow emphasized that Tehran’s right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy should be “fully” respected.

“The Iranian side has never said a single word about intending to obtain nuclear weapons,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a separate statement. “In this respect, of course, all sanctions and restrictions are, in our view, illegal.”

“We believe that our Iranian friends have the right to develop a peaceful nuclear energy industry in their country,” he continued. “Russia is actively involved in this and is assisting our Iranian friends in this regard.”

On Thursday, Iran’s Ambassador to the UN, Amir Saeid Iravani, accused Western countries of spreading false information about Tehran’s nuclear program to impose “illegal sanctions” that have deprived Iran of essential medical supplies and restricted its exports.

“Despite these facts, certain Western countries, particularly the United States, Britain, France, and Germany, have persistently sought to create a false narrative about Iran’s nuclear activities, alleging non-cooperation [with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog] and military ambitions,” Iravani said.

In their joint statement, Iranian, Chinese, and Russian officials also announced they achieved “very important and valuable agreements regarding the development of trilateral cooperation on significant international issues, including the necessity for the three countries to work together to counter US unilateral and bullying sanctions.”

Friday’s meeting came after Iran, China, and Russia on Wednesday concluded three days of joint naval drills in Iranian territorial waters in the Gulf of Oman, bolstering defense cooperation. Experts told The Algemeiner this week that expanding military cooperation between the three countries presents a rising threat to the US and its allies in the Middle East, especially Israel.

Both Beijing and Moscow have had deep interests in Tehran as a partner in the Middle East. China has continued to purchase Iranian crude oil despite Western sanctions and remains one of the top markets for Iranian imports. Meanwhile, Russia has relied on Iran for the supply of bomb-carrying drones used in its war on Ukraine.

Iran’s growing ties with China and Russia come at a time when Tehran is facing increasing sanctions by the United States, particularly on its oil industry, as part of the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign aimed at cutting the country’s crude exports to zero and preventing it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Even though Tehran has denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon, the IAEA has warned that Iran is “dramatically” accelerating uranium enrichment to up to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90 percent weapons-grade level.

Tehran has repeatedly claimed that its nuclear program is for civilian purposes rather than weapon development.

However, Western states have said there is no “credible civilian justification” for the country’s recent nuclear activity, arguing it “gives Iran the capability to rapidly produce sufficient fissile material for multiple nuclear weapons.”

Last week, Iran’s so-called “supreme leader,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Tehran will not be bullied into negotiations after US President Donald Trump revealed he had sent a letter to the country’s top authority to negotiate a nuclear deal.

Last month, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi rejected the possibility of nuclear talks with Washington.

“There will be no possibility of direct talks between us and the United States on the nuclear issue as long as the maximum pressure is applied in this way,” Araghchi said during a joint press conference with his visiting Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov.

Iran and Russia, which recently signed a pact to deepen their defense ties, have been working on an initiative to form an international alliance against US sanctions.

The post Iran, China, Russia Call for End to ‘Unlawful Sanctions’ Amid Tensions With US Over Tehran’s Nuclear Program first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Elise Stefanik Blasts UN for ‘Antisemitic’ Report Accusing Israel of Sexual Violence in Gaza

United Nations Ambassador-designate Elise Stefanik spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Feb. 22, 2025. Photo: Zach D Roberts/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect

US President Donald Trump’s nominee to serve as the next American ambassador to the United Nations has repudiated a new UN-backed report accusing the Israel Defense Force (IDF) of perpetrating sexual violence against Palestinians in Gaza, lambasting its claims as “antisemitic” and baseless.

The corrupt UN Human Rights Council’s new baseless report is antisemitic and anti-Israel slander,” US Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) posted on social media on Thursday, when the report was published. “The so-called ‘Human Rights Council’ [UNHRC] has failed to condemn the barbaric atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists against Israel including the brutal slaughter, torture, kidnapping of thousands of innocent civilians, and Hamas’s horrific use of rape and sexual violence against Israeli women and girls, yet disgracefully attacks Israel with unfounded smears.”

Stefanik continued, “This report exposes the disgraceful and obsessive antisemitism of UNHRC and reaffirms why President Trump took the strong, correct decisive executive action to withdraw from it.”

The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Thursday published a report, commissioned by the Human Rights Council, that accused Israel of committing “genocidal acts” and employing sexual violence in Gaza. The report alleged that Israeli military forces have used sexual abuse and forcible stripping as weapons of war against Palestinian civilians.   

“Israeli authorities have destroyed in part the reproductive capacity of the Palestinians in Gaza as a group, including by imposing measures intended to prevent births, one of the categories of genocidal acts in the Rome Statute and the Genocide Convention,” the report said.

Upon the report’s release, Israel’s permanent mission to the UN released a statement rejecting the allegations, arguing that they lacked substantiation and were based on uncorroborated sources. 

“In a shameless attempt to incriminate the IDF and manufacture the illusion of ‘systematic’ use of [sexual and gender-based violence], the [Commission of Inquiry] deliberately adopts a lower level of corroboration in its report, which allowed it to include information from second-hand single uncorroborated sources,” the mission said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also repudiated the UNHRC, arguing that the “antisemitic” council has launched unsubstantiated allegations against the Jewish state with the goal of tarnishing its reputation. 

“Instead of focusing on the crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by the Hamas terrorist organization in the worst massacre committed against the Jewish people since the Holocaust, the UN is once again choosing to attack Israel with false accusations, including unfounded accusations of sexual violence,” Netanyahu wrote. 

In contrast, Hamas, the terrorist group that runs Gaza, said that the report confirmed Israel’s “genocidal” actions within the enclave. 

“The UN’s investigation report on Israel’s genocidal acts against the Palestinian people confirms what has happened on the ground: genocide and violations of all humanitarian and legal standards,” Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem told AFP.

Several investigations have revealed that Hamas-led Palestinians perpetrated widespread sexual violence against Israeli women and girls not only during their Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel but also later against Israeli hostages kidnapped during the onslaught.

Anne Herzberg, legal adviser and UN representative for NGO Monitor, told The Algemeiner that the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice will likely use the report to bolster their genocide cases against Israel. Other anti-Israel initiatives such as the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement (BDS) will also likely reference the report in future activities. 

Stefanik was tapped by Trump to serve as the ambassador to the United Nations for the current administration. However, Stefanik has not yet been confirmed by the US Senate to serve in the post. Senate Republicans are reportedly slowing her confirmation process due to concerns over the narrow Republican majority in the House of Representatives, where her vote is seen as necessary to pass key legislation.

The post Elise Stefanik Blasts UN for ‘Antisemitic’ Report Accusing Israel of Sexual Violence in Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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