The IDF struck Hassan Abdel Fattah Mohammed Eslaih, a member of Hamas’s Khan Yunis Brigade, in a strike in Khan Yunis, the military said on Monday.
Eslaih, who was previously employed by both CNN and the Associated Press (AP) and owned a media company, took part in the October 7 massacre, infiltrating into southern Israel and sharing footage from the massacre to social media, the IDF noted.
Iran’s Mehr news agency previously referred to Eslaiah as “Israel’s nightmare,” saying that he was targeted for “tirelessly covering the events of Gaza and reflecting them on social media platforms.”
In 2024, a photo surfaced of former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwa kissing Eslaih, and both news outlets that employed Eslaih claimed to have fired him immediately.
Shortly after, the parents of five victims of the Nova festival attack filed a civil suit for damages against AP and Reuters for employing and utilizing photojournalists involved with terror organizations, naming Eslaiah in the suit.
Families of Nova victims sued Reuters and AP
The parents of May Naim, Lotan Abir, Guy Gabriel, Shalev Madmoni, and Shani Louk filed the lawsuit in the Jerusalem District Court, seeking about NIS 25 million ($6.5 million) in damages.
The lawsuit alleged that the journalists filing photographs in real time during the Hamas attacks made them a component of the attacks and, therefore, were not conducting legitimate journalistic work.
Neither AP nor Reuters immediately responded to a request for comment on the lawsuit against them.
However, last week, Reuters confirmed to Jerusalem-based watchdog HonestReporting that it had removed images from its database by multiple Gazan photojournalists for their ties to terror organizations, including Eslaih.
“When informed about possible problems with certain content from one news organization on the Reuters Connect platform, we investigated and took it down because the material didn’t comply with our partner content policy,” Reuters told HonestReporting.
Eslaiah’s photos were also used by Getty, Sky News, and The New York Times.
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