AP SUED FOR USING HAMAS-LINKED PHOTOG: A lawsuit has been filed on behalf of victims of Hamas’ October 7 terrorist attack that killed more than 1,200 Israelis against the Associated Press (AP).

The suit, which cites AP for its payments to Hassan Eslaiah, a free-lance photographer with deep, long-standing ties to the terrorist group, was filed by the National Jewish Advocacy Center (NJAC). The Washington Free Beacon’s Adam Kredo reports that AP was warned five years about Eslaiah’s terrorist affiliations.

The lawsuit claims that Eslaiah’s links to Hamas “enabled him to secure photographic opportunities that would have otherwise been difficult for someone without Hamas connections and who was displaying press credentials to obtain.”

The NJAC added in a statement that “the AP paid for some of these real time images, including of Israeli hostages being taken into Gaza, despite having been warned well in advance that at least one of the so-called ‘journalists’ they were paying were in fact Hamas affiliates, and despite the clear indications that they were functioning as full participants in the Hamas terrorist squad that conducted the October 7th attack, and not as the AP chose to pretend, as journalists.”

The AP denied all of the claims in the lawsuit and issued a statement calling the litigation “baseless.”