HonestReporting.com, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog, published a report Monday showing two photojournalists, one working for Reuters and one working for the Associated Press, urging Palestinians to join Hamas terrorists October 7 in infiltrating Israel.
HonestReporting reported:
A Gaza photojournalist working for 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.
Video of several livestreams is provided in the report:
In one livestream, Abu Mostafa is seen laughin about the body of a video of a lynched Israeli soldier being dragged from a tank. A photograph of that event by Abu Mostafa was later presented by Reuters and the New York Times as one of the photos of the year for 2023.
The phenomenon of Palestinian photographers working for news agencies in Gaza while also working with terrorists has already caused controversy in the ongoing conflict.
As Breitbart News has previously noted: “News agencies have faced criticism in recent years for using photographers or local “stringers” who have sympathy for anti-Israel terrorist groups. Often, these are the only photographers that groups like Hamas and Hezbollah will permit to work in the area.”
In November, the Associated Press cut ties with one photographer after an HonestReporting investigation showed him appearing to coordinate with Hamas terrorists on October 7, and documenting their activities without wearing identifiable press credentials.
In October, the New York Times reportedly re-hired a photographer it had earlier fired for praising Hitler on social media.
News agencies and outlets have pushed back against accusations that their photographers and stringers work with terrorists, saying it endangers their personnel.
However, sometimes journalists appear to cultivate relationships with terrorists that place their own lives in danger. On Sunday, Israel said that two journalists, including one from Al Jazeera, who were killed in an airstrike in Gaza were riding in a vehicle with a Hamas drone operator.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the 2021 e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now updated with a new foreword. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
Correction: This article earlier identified HonestReporting as UK-based, when in fact it is based in Jerusalem, Israel.
