This is how Hamas used Gazan journalists for the Oct. 7 massacre - opinion

Ilana Dayan is considered the top investigative journalist in Israel, and her primetime Channel 12 news magazine, Uvda, is always well researched, revealing, and impressive.

Yet even she may not have realized the significance of a line she mentioned in her TV program’s extensive report last Thursday about the leadership and intelligence failures that led up to the Oct. 7 massacre.

Dayan reported about Hamas’s plan for invading southern Israel, called Jericho Wall, which the IDF’s elite Intelligence Corps Unit 8200 obtained in the spring of 2022, translated from Arabic to Hebrew and presented to the heads of military intelligence and the Southern Command.

She was not the first to report about the plan’s existence and the IDF’s tragic failure to heed its warnings. KAN-TV anchor Ayala Hasson revealed the plan exclusively on November 28, and New York Times writers Ronen Bergman and Adam Goldman made waves around the world when they expounded on the plan two days later.

How Hamas planned to take advantage of Gazan journalists

But without highlighting it as a headline, Dayan exposed an interesting new detail in the plan about how Hamas intended to take advantage of Gazan journalists.

“The document is Hamas’s big plan for infiltrating Israel, point by point, exactly as it was later carried out,” Dayan reported on her show. “The plan includes everything in great detail, from how many Nukhba brigades would come, to how they would break through the barrier, and even those so-called reporters, who would join the brigades and broadcast the operation in real time.”

This was just the latest revelation in a series of pieces of evidence that have emerged since November 8, when the pro-Israel media watchdog organization that I head, HonestReporting, raised questions about the Gazan photographers who took the first pictures inside Israel on Oct. 7 that were seen around the world.

Hours after our report was published, the first evidence came out that justified the questions we asked and substantiated allegations that there were Gazan journalists who crossed not only physical but also ethical boundaries on the morning of Oct. 7.

Channel 12 political analyst Amit Segal followed up on our story by posting a picture of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar kissing photographer Hassan Eslaiah, who was working for CNN and the Associated Press. Both news outlets rightfully fired Eslaiah immediately.

Already then, a group of 14 US state attorneys general had warned the chiefs of CNN, The New York Times, Reuters, and AP to better vet their freelancers lest they fall foul of laws against providing material support to terrorist organizations like Hamas.

Two months later, HonestReporting revealed an Instagram Live video of Reuters photographer Mohammed Fayq Abu Mostafa excitedly displaying pictures he took of Hamas atrocities and bragging to fellow photojournalist Ashraf Amra that he had been in Sderot taking part in the infiltration “since the beginning.”

Fayq Abu Mostafa described breaking into a room where Israelis were hiding before they were taken by Hamas terrorists. He then called on people to cross into the sovereign Jewish state: “Advice, whoever can go – go. It is a one-time event that will not happen again.”

It took them too long to admit it, but both Reuters and AP recently said they would no longer use new pictures from Amra or Fayq Abu Mostafa. Their old pictures, however, continue to lead their compilations of the war’s top photographs.

Amra and Fayq Abu Mostafa became the ninth and tenth antisemitic, Hamas, or Hitler-praising journalists fired, suspended, reassigned, or no longer used due to reports by HonestReporting since I became the organization’s executive director in July 2022, including three from The New York Times, two from AP, and two from CNN.

PEOPLE WHO HATE Jews can be journalists, but they should not be reporting about the Jewish state. Therefore, Reuters is wrong to continue paying for pictures from photojournalist Doaa Rouqa, whose social media posts, revealed by HonestReporting, have celebrated rockets fired at Israel and called Hamas’s attacks “brave resistance.” Last week, HonestReporting also revealed a disturbing social media post by Reuters Executive Editor Simon Robinson, who shared an extremely problematic essay titled “The Shoah after Gaza.”

There is also plenty of evidence of journalists collaborating with Hamas that did not come through HonestReporting.

The IDF revealed evidence that two Al Jazeera journalists were active terrorists in Hamas. Mohammed Wishnah held a senior role in the terrorist group’s anti-tank unit and taught young jihadis how to fire anti-tank missiles and make incendiary devices. Ismail Abu Omar was found to have accompanied Hamas terrorists into Israel on Oct. 7, going to Kibbutz Nir Oz.

Gaza-based journalist Muthana Al-Najjar entered Israel on Oct. 7 and shocked Israelis with his stand-up to camera reports from Kibbutz Nahal Oz as gunshots were heard in the background. He did not wear a press vest or a helmet to make him identifiable as a member of the press, and clearly did not feel under threat from the Hamas terrorists in his midst.

Al-Najjar filmed the kidnapping of terrified Shiri Bibas and her small children, Ariel and Kfir, instead of trying to save their lives. He also shared a picture showing two of the terrorists triumphantly stepping on the body of a murdered Israeli, with a comment translated from Arabic: “Their dead under the feet of the warriors of al-Qassam Brigades.”

While Al-Najjar actively knew he was part of a Hamas plan, others listed here might not have. But the line in the Hamas document that Dayan revealed says clearly that the terrorist organization intended to take advantage of journalists, and on Oct. 7 it did just that.

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After HonestReporting asked questions about the Gazan photojournalists, reporters from media outlets that we put on the defensive interviewed me and asked what evidence we had. When I honestly – and perhaps foolishly – replied that we had merely raised questions and did not claim to have answers, I was attacked personally and falsely portrayed as if I had backtracked and undermined my organization’s report.

Ilana Dayan’s report and the others mentioned here answer the questions and validate the work that HonestReporting is doing as a media watchdog. We asked legitimate questions, and now the answers are out there.

The writer is the executive director and executive editor of HonestReporting. He served as chief political correspondent and analyst of The Jerusalem Post for 24 years.