Major international media outlets have vigorously denied having known in advance that Hamas was going to attack Israel on October 7, in response to accusations targeting certain Palestinian photojournalists in Gaza and taken up by the Israeli government.
Denials were published by the American media The New York Times and CNN, as well as by the three global news agencies Associated Press (AP), Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
The controversy started with a post posted online on Wednesday by the pro-Israeli organization HonestReporting, which highlights the treatment it considers unfavorable to Israel in the media.
HonestReporting suggested, in a questioning mode, that independent Palestinian photojournalists in Gaza employed, according to it, by AP, Reuters, CNN and the New York Times, could have been warned of the attack in advance by the Islamist movement Hamas .
Taken over by Israel
Widely relayed on social networks, these accusations were taken up by the Israeli government.
“These journalists are complicit in crimes against humanity; their actions were contrary to professional ethics,” said the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the social network X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday.
“Israel’s internal security agency has announced that it will eliminate all participants in the October 7 massacres. The “photojournalists” who participated in the coverage of the attack will be added to this list,” MP Danny Danon, member of Likud, Mr. Netanyahu’s party, and former diplomat, declared on the same network.
“The Associated Press had no knowledge of the October 7 attacks before they happened,” the AP agency responded in a statement Thursday.
“The accusation that anyone New York Times knew in advance of the Hamas attacks or accompanied Hamas terrorists during the attacks is false and scandalous,” the American daily also assured, stressing that this endangers its journalists on the ground in Israel and abroad. Gaza.”
The Reuters agency “categorically denied having any knowledge of the attack in advance or having sent journalists with Hamas on October 7.”
CNN also denied having been aware of it in advance. However, she indicated that she had ceased all collaboration with the main independent photographer implicated by HonestReporting, while stressing that she had “no reason at this stage to doubt the journalistic accuracy of the work” that he had accomplished in the past.
” Death threats “
The AP also indicated that it no longer employs this independent photographer.
The AFP reacted on Friday, because, although not cited among the media pointed out by HonestReporting, it was questioned on social networks in France.
“Any accusation of collusion between our journalists in Gaza and Hamas during the October 7 attack is slanderous and defamatory, and we reserve the right to take any action accordingly,” said its news director, Phil Chetwynd.
Photographers working permanently for AFP “were awakened by artillery and rocket fire, and they then went near the barrier between Gaza and Israel”. “The first photos near the Gaza fence were taken more than an hour after the attack began,” the agency said in a statement.
For its part, the press defense NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF) denounced on Friday “the call for the murder of journalists” and judged that “the statements casting discredit on the integrity of an entire profession [étaient] unacceptable”.
“Israeli authorities went from claiming that they could not guarantee the protection of journalists in Gaza to issuing death threats against reporters covering the conflict, based on suspicions that have not been substantiated or substantiated to date,” he said. deplored RSF in a press release.