Israeli government blame freelance photographers behind bloody massacre by Hamas killers

 The govt seized on a report by a pro-Israel media watchdog group, Honest Reporting, which has long accused the Times and other news organizations of anti-Israel bias in their coverage of Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians

Israel Flag: File image

Mark Landler, NYTS, Jerusalem, 11.11.23 : The Israeli government on Thursday accused freelance photographers for several major news organisations, including The New York Times, of being “accomplices” in the killing and abductions of Israeli soldiers and civilians by Hamas fighters — an allegation the Times vigorously denied about its freelancer.

The government seized on a report by a pro-Israel media watchdog group, Honest Reporting, which has long accused the Times and other news organizations of anti-Israel bias in their coverage of Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians.

“These journalists were accomplices in crimes against humanity,” the public diplomacy department of the prime minister’s office said in a tersely worded statement. “Their actions were contrary to professional ethics.”

In its report, the watchdog group questioned why six Gaza-based photographers, all of whom were working for The Associated Press and Reuters, were early to document the incursion by Hamas into Israel on October 7.

The journalists photographed an Israeli tank that had been destroyed at the border of the Gaza Strip, soon after the militants broke through a fence and swarmed into Israeli territory.

It said one of the photographers, Hassan Eslaiah, took pictures of a house burning in Kibbutz Kfar Azza, a target of the deadly attack by militants, while two others documented Hamas fighters transporting kidnapped Israelis back to Gaza. These harrowing images were all published by the AP, as was a Reuters photo of a mob carrying the body of an Israeli soldier.

Although a fourth AP photographer named in the report, Yousef Masoud, has worked as a freelancer for the Times since shortly after the war began, he was not on assignment for the paper on the morning of October 7, according to a statement issued by the Times.

The Times rejected suggestions that it had advance warning of the attacks or had accompanied Hamas terrorists, calling the claims “untrue and outrageous”. It also said there was “no evidence for Honest Reporting’s insinuations” about Masoud.