Israel Incited Against Hassan Eslaiah With Disinformation, Then Killed Him

On May 13, Gaza photojournalist Hassan Eslaiah was killed in an Israeli strike at Nasser Hospital while receiving treatment after being wounded in a previous Israeli airstrike in April.

Eslaiah was known both locally and internationally for documenting Israeli military actions and their impact on Gaza. He worked for years as a freelance journalist for local and international news agencies, including CNN and The Associated Press.

He was among the Gaza journalists who documented the October 7 attack, capturing images that were distributed by international news outlets.

His killing followed a prolonged campaign of disinformation and incitement by Israeli media outlets, prominent figures and aligned organizations seeking to discredit and endanger him.

This report sheds light on the disinformation and incitement campaign Eslaiah faced before he was ultimately killed.

Israeli Lobby Groups Waged Yearslong Incitement Campaign Against Eslaiah

The first public incitement effort against Hassan Eslaiah was in December 2018, issued by the media watchdog Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA).

In a report on Eslaiah’s alleged affiliations, CAMERA accused him of ties to Hamas through his work with Quds TV, a local media outlet in Gaza, claiming that he rarely provided “independent confirmation of Hamas’ claims.”

CAMERA ignored the reality that the Gaza Strip is governed by Hamas, and its report paved the way for a prolonged and aggressive incitement campaign carried out by other organizations and media outlets.

CAMERA’s report paved the way for a prolonged and aggressive incitement campaign by other organizations and news outlets.

Following the October 7 attack, the Israeli lobbying group HonestReporting was a leading force in the disinformation and incitement against Eslaiah.

In a November 2023 report, HonestReporting published an exposé titled “Broken borders: AP & Reuters pictures of Hamas atrocities raise ethical questions.”

The organization directly accused Eslaiah and other journalists who documented the October 7 attack of complicity in the events.

Although the presence of photojournalists at major incidents is a standard professional practice, the organization questioned their legitimacy. The journalists’ “early morning presence at the breached border area raises serious ethical questions,” claimed HonestReporting.

The report implied that journalists it identified knew in advance about the Hamas attack, without providing evidence.

Eslaiah denied these allegations, confirming to the French newspaper Libération that he was able to reconstruct his morning through his social media posts, from an initial video of rocket fire at 6:41 a.m., to his crossing of the border during a Facebook Live at 8:27 a.m., to his arrival on a motorcycle at a kibbutz at around 9:30 a.m., where the bodies of murdered Israelis already lay.

AP also noted that the first photos it received of the attack from freelancers were taken “more than an hour after the attacks began,” aligning with the timeline Eslaiah mentioned.

The report also highlighted a photo of Eslaiah with Yahya Sinwar, the former leader of Hamas, implying his possible involvement in the attack.

Despite the lack of concrete evidence, CNN and The Associated Press severed ties with Eslaiah following HonestReporting’s claims.

The organization's continued efforts included subsequent reports. Its latest was a report published a week before Eslaiah’s murder, titled “Exposed: AP sells pictures by photojournalist identified as Hamas terrorist, kissed by Sinwar.”

The report reiterated claims about Eslaiah's alleged ties to Hamas and criticized media outlets for using his photographs.

Honestreporting Made False Claims Against Eslaiah Using Misleading Video

Throughout its incitement campaign, HonestReporting presented three primary allegations to support its theory of Eslaiah’s complicity in the October 7 attack.

The first was claiming that Eslaiah’s presence during the attack served as evidence of involvement. The second was claiming that his photo with Sinwar supposedly proved a close affiliation. The third claim alleged that Eslaiah held a grenade in his hand during the October 7 attack while riding a motorcycle.

The first two claims do not constitute credible evidence of Eslaiah’s alleged complicity.

As for the third claim, it was based on a video originally shared by Israeli journalist Amit Segal, showing people riding a motorcycle during the October 7 attack while one of them held a grenade in his hand — Eslaiah’s voice is heard in the background.

Hassan Eslaiah denied in an interview that he was the person carrying the grenade while confirming that he had been given a ride back to Gaza from Israel that day.

Misbar’s team examined the video, finding that Eslaiah’s confirmation was true.

Upon examining a video clip shared by Hassan Eslaiah on his X account on October 7, Misbar’s team found that it was evident he was wearing a shirt with white and gray stripes. In contrast, the hand seen holding a grenade in the video shared by Segal appears to be wearing a shirt with beige and black stripes, featuring curved lines rather than the straight lines of Eslaiah’s shirt.

Three people were riding the motorcycle: the driver in front wearing a white shirt, a second person behind him holding a grenade, and Eslaiah, seated at the back, filming the road while reporting on the unfolding events.

HonestReporting’s incitement efforts did not end there. It created a dedicated tag solely for Hassan Eslaiah on its website, compiling nine articles that repeatedly incited against the Gaza photojournalist throughout the period from November 2023 to May 2025.

Israeli Government and Media Led Incitement Campaign Against Eslaiah

Beyond CAMERA and HonestReporting, the Israeli government, officials, politicians and media outlets joined the incitement campaign against Eslaiah.

Following HonestReporting's exposé that targeted Eslaiah and other journalists who worked for international outlets, the Israeli Prime Minister's Office demanded that the news outlets take immediate action against what it described as “photographers in the service of Hamas.”

Netanyahu’s office claimed that the journalists were “accomplices in crimes against humanity.”

Israeli minister and member of the war cabinet Benny Gantz amplified the claims in an X post that described the journalists who documented the attack as “terrorists and should be treated as such.”

About five hours after Gantz’s post, Knesset member Danny Danon, Israel’s representative to the U.N., openly threatened the journalists, saying they would be added to Israel’s list of elimination.

Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi also repeated Gantz’s threat that anyone who “participated, supported, or maintained a bond of silence and enabled the massacre in the envelope will be punished like any terrorist in Gaza.”

Various media outlets echoed the Israeli government's accusations against Eslaiah and other journalists, with The Jerusalem Post publishing opinion pieces amplifying the claims. One article stated, “Journalists acted as accomplices to Hamas,” treating the allegations as established facts.

In response, Eslaiah warned via his X account about the escalating incitement against him. This warning was followed by a wave of digital threats from Israeli accounts, including direct death threats.

These incitements ultimately led the Israeli military to target a journalists’ tent in Khan Younis where Eslaiah was, causing severe injuries to Eslaiah and others and killing journalist Helmi al-Faqawi.

Following the strike, the official account of the Israeli military confirmed that it was aimed at killing Eslaiah, identifying him as “a terrorist,” and accusing him of being a “terrorist operative in Hamas' Khan Yunis Brigade”—a claim that Eslaiah and Hamas denied.

Ismail al-Thawabta, director of the Hamas-run government media office, stated at the time that Israel's accusations against Eslaiah were “false” and that Eslaiah had no political affiliation.

According to the Palestinian digital rights organization Sada Social, following the first assassination attempt, online posts urged the Israeli military to “finish the job,” sharing his hospital details to facilitate potential airstrikes, accompanied by mocking and inflammatory commentary about his injuries.

The Celebrated Murder of Gaza Journalist Hassan Eslaiah

The incitement campaign against Eslaiah did not end with his killing on May 13 but climaxed with it. Following his killing, several Israeli media outlets celebrated his death, framing it as a justified action against a Hamas operative.

Following his assassination, CAMERA published a report celebrating his murder, amplifying the Israeli military's claim that he was a “Hamas Operative.”

Similar to its 2018 article on Eslaiah, CAMERA did not provide plausible evidence proving that Eslaiah was affiliated with Hamas, despite mentioning that he was working with Quds TV.

Ynet News followed suit with a report describing Eslaiah as a “Sinwar ally” and “top Hamas propagandist.”

Israel Hayom went further, headlining its report: “Did Israel settle score with infamous 'journalist' from October 7?”

Accusing Journalists of Terrorism: Israel’s Methodology to Silence the Truth

Disinformation and incitement against Hassan Eslaiah are the result of a systematic Israeli strategy to eradicate independent reporting on its military actions.

Israel has been following a methodology of disinformation, legal repression, and lethal force to silence Palestinian journalists and control the narrative of the war.

The Israeli military, Israeli media outlets, officials, and prominent figures all participate in such campaigns.

Israel and its aligned parties begin by smearing Palestinian journalists as “terrorists” by fabricating evidence.

Before Hassan Eslaiah, Israel killed Al Jazeera’s Hossam Shabat, claiming that he was a “terrorist” and a member of Hamas' Beit Hanoun Battalion. Al Jazeera dismissed Israel’s claims at the time, saying he faced an incitement campaign that included death threats from Israeli extremists and mass reporting of his social media accounts.

Similarly, Ismail al-Ghoul was posthumously labeled as an “engineer in Hamas’ Gaza military.” Misbar’s investigation found that Israel contradicted its previous actions, as it arrested him, interrogated him for 12 hours, and then released him.

In October 2024, the official account of the Israeli military identified six Al Jazeera journalists working, claiming that they were with “Hamas and the Islamic Jihad terrorist organizations.”

The military continued that its post serves as “proof of the integration of Hamas terrorists within the Qatari Al Jazeera media network,” but no proof was provided other than a photo containing the six journalists’ photos in the press vests.

In September 2024, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) declared that it documented 31 credible cases where there was enough evidence confirming that Israel was directly targeting journalists because of their profession.

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