Survivors of the October 7 massacre are suing the Associated Press (AP) for hiring freelance photographers "embedded with Hamas terrorists," the New York Post reported.
The plaintiffs, Americans and Israeli-Americans who were present at the Nova music festival near Re'im when Hamas terrorists and Gazan civilians brutally attacked the partygoers, and loved ones of Hamas massacre victims, are accusing AP of "aiding and abetting the terrorist organization."
According to the federal complaint filed in the Southern District of Florida on Wednesday night, the plaintiffs are suing AP for damages under the Antiterrorism Act, and are represented by lawyers working with the nonprofit National Jewish Advocacy Center.
The suit claims AP is "materially supporting terrorism" by paying photojournalists affiliated with the Hamas terror group for images captured during and immediately following the October 7 massacre.
The suit explains, "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 lawsuit also names four freelance photographers whose work AP purchased and published. All four, it says, are "known Hamas associates who were gleefully embedded with the Hamas terrorists during the October 7th attacks."
Among the four is photojournalist, Hassan Eslaiah, who severed ties with AP in November and who even before the October 7 massacre was accused of being affiliated with Hamas. The new lawsuit claims that he was side-by-side with Hamas terrorists as they slaughtered innocent Israelis.
Eslaiah has denied prior knowledge of the attack and links to the Hamas terror group, the New York Times reported.
According to the attorneys, Eslaiah's ties to Hamas were known to AP, but the media outlet chose to continue paying for his work.
"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 says.
National Jewish Advocacy Center director Mark Goldfeder commented, "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."
Neither AP nor Eslaiah returned the New York Post's request for comment.