Nova music festival survivors file lawsuit against Associated Press

Survivors from Hamas’ massacre at the Nova music festival have filed a lawsuit against Associated Press for using freelance journalists who allegedly were embedded with terrorists who stormed Gaza’s border fence on 7 October. 

The survivors are suing AP for damages under the Anti-terrorism Act, accusing the outlet of using the four men despite knowing their ties to Hamas.

“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 states.

The lawsuit claims that the four journalists are “known Hamas associates who were gleefully embedded with the Hamas terrorists during the October 7th attacks.”

One of the journalists, Hassan Eslaiah, caused uproar after a photo of him from 2020 resurfaced, showing Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar kissing and hugging Eslaiah.

The survivors allege that Eslaiah was next to Hamas terrorists as they slaughtered civilian Israelis. Following allegations against Eslaiah after 7 October,  AP severed ties with him.

But the survivors claim that “AP wilfully 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 organisation.”

AP issued a statement in response to the lawsuit, saying: “The first pictures AP received from any freelancer show they were taken more than an hour after the attacks began. No AP staff were at the border at the time of the attacks, nor did any AP staffer cross the border at any time.”