Several survivors of the October 7th Hamas massacre are suing the Associated Press of aiding and abetting Hamas by using freelance journalists embedded in the murderous terror organization, the New York Post reported on Wednesday.

The plaintiffs are Americans and Israeli-Americans who survived the massacre at the Nova music festival near Be’eri as well as family members of the victims. They are suing AP for damages under the Antiterrorism Act in a federal complaint, filed in the Southern District of Florida Wednesday evening by lawyers from the nonprofit National Jewish Advocacy Center.

The lawyers accuse AP of “materially supporting terrorism” by paying photojournalists affiliated with Hamas for photos taken during and after the October 7th assault.

“There is no doubt that AP’s photographers participated in the October 7th massacre, and that AP knew, or at the very least should have known, through simple due diligence, that the people they were paying were longstanding Hamas affiliates and full participants in the terrorist attack that they were also documenting,” the complaint states.

It also lists the names of four photographers whose images were purchased by AP, stating that they are “known Hamas associates who were gleefully embedded with the Hamas terrorists during the October 7th attacks.”

But the complaint mainly focuses on one photojournalist, Hassan Eslaiah, who was accused of being affiliated with Hamas even before October 7th. Eslaiah, who photographed some of the earliest photos of the attack, is accused in the complaint of closely accompanying the Hamas monsters as they tortured and murdered Israelis.

Eslaiah, who in 2020 was photographed with Yahya Sinwar as the Hamas leader was kissing his cheek, denies he had any advance knowledge of the attack or is tied to Hamas, according to the New York Times, which was also criticized for using his photos. Eslaiah did admit that he got a ride back to Gaza after the assault with Hamas terrorists.

According to the company, AP was well aware of Eslaiah’s ties to Hamas but chose to continue to pay for his photos.

“AP willfully chose to turn a blind eye to these facts, and instead profited from its terrorist photographer’s participation in the massacre through its publication of the ‘exclusive’ images, for which it certainly paid a premium, effectively funding a terrorist organization,” the suit alleges.

The Honest Reporting media watchdog first raised questions about the photos taken in the early hours of the Hamas invitation in November, speculating that six Gazan photographers had advance knowledge of the attack because they began “work” so early that day – coincidently on the Israeli-Gazan border.

AP denied the allegation, issuing a statement denying it had any knowledge of the Oct. 7 attack.

“The first pictures AP received from any freelancer show they were taken more than an hour after the attacks began,” AP’s vice president of corporate communications Lauren Easton said in the Nov. 9 statement. “No AP staff were at the border at the time of the attacks, nor did any AP staffer cross the border at any time.”

“We are no longer working with Hassan Eslaiah, who had been an occasional freelancer for AP and other international news organizations in Gaza.”

National Jewish Advocacy Center director Mark Goldfeder slammed AP: “Media organizations do not have any special right to act with impunity and pretend that they don’t know whom they are paying.”

“And as other cases have made clear, it does not matter that the people AP was paying, with whom they had longstanding relationships, were freelancers and not employees; the issue is that AP was furnishing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, not in what capacity the terrorists were cashing the checks.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)