Last October 7th, Hamas terrorists swarmed out of Gaza and slaughtered more than 1,200 civilians in Israel, most of them unarmed. The massacre sparked a war which is still raging.
For many of us, those events already feel distant, but for survivors, it’s an ongoing trauma, and now some are fighting back through the American court system.
ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR
A group of five victims filed a federal lawsuit in Miami against the Associated Press, alleging the AP fueled the terror by hiring Hamas members as freelance journalists and that some of those men actually took part in the barbaric attacks of October 7th.
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"I don’t care how great a story it is, when you’re giving these people money that money is going to support terrorist activities, period," said Etan Mark, one of the lead attorneys bringing the lawsuit.
The lawsuit contains numerous examples of photos allegedly used by the AP and taken by terrorists. It claims that by hiring Hamas operatives or buying their photos and videos, the AP aided and abetted terrorist acts, breaking federal law in the process.
Mark was asked how could he prove that the AP knowingly hired terrorists.
"Well, because we have correspondence with the AP as early as 2017 in which they were told that these people who we knew at the time were photographing for the AP, were told that these people were Hamas terrorists, we have photographs of the head of Hamas kissing one of those AP photographers,” Mark replied.
“We’ve been through hell, me and my family,” said Adin Gess, one of the plaintiffs.
He’s among the many thousands of Israelis who have been displaced from their homes by the terror attacks on the kibbutz villages in Southern Israel. Gess says he survived only because by chance, he took his family out of town for that weekend, and he joined the lawsuit because says there needs to be accountability.
“I mean I hope that these reporters, these Hamas-affiliated reporters, even if they’re freelancers, journalists, whatever they want to call themselves, are held accountable, the media groups, AP and others who are financing these reporters or journalists, at the end of the day they’re also supporting this terrorist organization,” Gess said.
“We think the dots are quite well connected here that number one, the AP knew of this connection, number two, they should not have been paying these terrorists, and number three, they continue to pay these terrorists even on and after October 7th,” added Mark.
The AP responded to the lawsuit in a statement, saying in part, "The Associated Press has the deepest sympathy for those affected by the horrific Oct. 7 attacks in Israel. At the same time, we must be clear that a lawsuit filed Wednesday against AP for its reporting on the attacks is baseless. AP had no advance knowledge of the Oct. 7 attacks, nor have we seen any evidence – including in the lawsuit – that the freelance journalists who contributed to our coverage did."
The statement goes on the call the lawsuit "reckless" and points out that without the reporting of the AP and other news organizations, the world would not have known what happened on October 7th.
The plaintiffs are seeking unspecified monetary damages, but the attorneys are doing their work free of charge.
