Five families whose children were murdered at the Nova party on October 7th, filed a lawsuit on Wednesday at the Jerusalem District Court against the Reuters and AP news agencies, claiming that "journalists and photographers" on their behalf accompanied the Hamas terrorists and documented the atrocities carried out during the massacre on that day. "Those 'journalists' were sent by these agencies to broadcast live from the massacre on the news websites they own," the lawsuit claims.
Ynet reported that, "The ten plaintiffs are the parents of the murdered youngsters: May Naim, Abir Lotan, Guy Gabriel Levi, Shalev Madmoni and Shani Louk. The parents, Anat and Ofer Naim, Naomi and Rami Abir, Orit and Nitzan Levi, Ilanit and Peretz Madmoni and Ricarda and Nissim Louk, stated in the lawsuit, filed with lawyers Yossi Ha'Ezrachi, Yehuda Ressler and Amir Rosenkrantz, that some of those "journalists", who broadcast the events, identify with Hamas and took an active part in the massacre on October 7th. It is also claimed that they infiltrated into the territory of the State of Israel from the Gaza Strip, alongside Hamas terrorists, as joint operatives, and were complicit in serious crimes and injustices.
The lawsuit continued to say that “The agencies are among the largest and most popular news agencies in the world, and are engaged, among other things, in the production and distribution of television broadcasts from around the world, including from Israel. The defendants who sent those dubious 'journalists' bear direct liability for their actions ... no legal excuse, such as the public's right to know, can justify a situation in which a journalist can or would document a serious crime in real time, for example, the kidnapping of an elderly woman from her home."
"It is difficult to imagine that those local 'journalists' did not know about the invasion and the horrible massacre ahead of time, since a significant part of their 'reports' and photographs were from the first minutes of the massacre."
"May, Lotan, Guy, Shalev and Shani were driven with a passion for life. Their entire future was ahead of them. They went to hang out at the Nova festival and were murdered in the heinous massacre. Not much is known about the circumstances of their horrifying deaths, and their families have collected scraps of information from friends of theirs who were at the party and survived, and from bits of information that their children sent them during the heinous massacre."
In conclusion, the suit claimed, "There is no doubt that the 'journalists' who accompanied the Hamas terrorists could have provided the necessary help and informed the authorities of Israel ahead of time of what was to come thus preventing the horrific crimes. The defendants, who made contact with these ‘journalists,’ have direct liability for the damages caused to the plaintiffs due to their actions." A statement of defense has not yet been submitted to the court.
A similar lawsuit was filed about a week ago against the AP news agency in the Florida court, in which the relatives of the victims of October 7 and the survivors of the festival claimed that the agency violated the anti-terrorism law in the USA, by ‘aiding Hamas and using independent press photographers who integrated into the organization's October 7th massacre."
About a month after the attack, investigations revealed that AP and Reuters photographers and other international media journalists documented the Hamas terrorist attack. AP responded: "The agency had no knowledge of the attacks before they occurred. AP's role is to gather information about news events around the world, even when they are horrific and cause mass casualties. AP uses images taken by freelancers around the world, including in Gaza." Reuters also denied any prior knowledge of the attack and emphasized that the photos they purchased from freelance photographers were taken about two hours after Hamas launched the attack and fired rockets into Israel.