Honest Reporting broke a bombshell today: Gaza-based photographers who work for the Associated Press and Reuters were on the scene of the October 7 massacre in Israel very early in the morning, ready to capture the moment when Hamas fighters raped, kidnapped, tortured, and slaughtered almost 1,500 Israeli civilians. Maybe they heard about what happened and decided it was newsworthy, so they hustled on over. Or maybe Reuters and the AP are paying money to people who knew that civilians were about to be massacred and either thought, “Yay” or “What a great opportunity to collect a paycheck.”

Here's what Honest Reporting had to say:

On October 7, Hamas terrorists were not the only ones who documented the war crimes they had committed during their deadly rampage across southern Israel. Some of their atrocities were captured by Gaza-based photojournalists working for the Associated Press and Reuters news agencies whose early morning presence at the breached border area raises serious ethical questions.

What were they doing there so early on what would ordinarily have been a quiet Saturday morning? Was it coordinated with Hamas? Did the respectable wire services, which published their photos, approve of their presence inside enemy territory, together with the terrorist infiltrators? Did the photojournalists who freelance for other media, like CNN and The New York Times, notify these outlets? Judging from the pictures of lynching, kidnapping and storming of an Israeli kibbutz, it seems like the border has been breached not only physically, but also journalistically.

The report then identifies the paid photographers who were on the scene. There’s Hassan Eslaiah, a freelancer who took photos of a burning Israeli tank (including a selfie of himself in front of the tank) and then got pictures of terrorists entering Kibbutz Kfar Azza. Maybe he just lived nearby and followed a story. Or maybe AP paid money to someone who has a picture of himself smiling happily as he gets a kiss from Yahya Sinwar, who masterminded the attack:

Journalists without borders pic.twitter.com/MOAbixWozt

— עמית סגל Amit Segal (@amit_segal) November 8, 2023

Other men whom the AP paid for photos were Masoud (who also works for the NY Times), Ali Mahmud, and Hatem Ali. Mahmud captured Shani Louk’s broken body thrown in the back of the truck that headed to Gaza, where the fine citizens spat upon it, while Ali captured pictures of people being kidnapped.

Meanwhile, over at Reuters, the outlet paid two photographers—Mohammed Fayq Abu Mostafa and Yasser Qudih—who just happened to be there in time to capture that burning Israeli tank, as well as the brutalizing of an Israeli soldier’s body. (I should add that brutalizing bodies is Battle 101 for Arabs. It’s not enough to kill an opponent. Given the chance, you must desecrate the body.)

Again, maybe these photographers were real journalists who heard something was happening, lived nearby, and hustled over to document a situation as pure observers. However, as Honest Reporting says, there’s reason to believe that there’s more going on:

It is now obvious that Hamas had planned its October 7 attack on Israel for a very long time: its scale, its brutal aims and its massive documentation have been prepared for months, if not years. Everything was taken into account — the deployments, the timing, as well as the use of bodycams and mobile phone videos for sharing the atrocities.

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?

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? And if so, did they notify the news agencies? Some sort of communication was undoubtedly necessary — before, after or during the attack —  in order to get the photos published.

It’s one thing for photographers to be embedded with a military unit going into battle and to take photographs even if that unit is entangled with civilians. It’s another thing entirely for major “news” outlets to pay money to people who knew of a plan to massacre and kidnap hundreds of ordinary citizens and who either supported the plan or saw it as a profit opportunity.

As a reminder, in May 2021, Israel destroyed a building in Gaza that housed not only Hamas terrorists (which is why it was a legitimate military target) but AP’s offices, too.

In Israel, there’s a free press. In Gaza and the West Bank, there are major news outlets that pay terrorists to provide them with “news.” It’s long been this way. It’s just that the October 7 massacre is finally allowing everyone to see this reality.

Image: Hassan Eslaiah gets a kiss from Yahya Sinwar.