 "The picture shows the half-naked body of German-Israeli Shani Louk alongside gun-wielding Hamas terrorists. Image Courtesy: @AvivaKlompas/X")
A massive controversy has erupted after an image of Hamas terrorists parading a slain woman’s near-naked body through the streets won a photojournalism award.
The person in the picture is Shani Louk , who was kidnapped by Hamas during the group’s unexpected attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, which resulted in a significant amount of bloodshed in the Gaza Strip following Israel’s offensive.
According to a New York Post report, the horrifying photo has now won first place in the “Team Picture Story of the Year” category.
Let’s take a closer look.
The image that bagged the first prize
The picture shows the half-naked body of German-Israeli Shani Louk alongside gun-wielding Hamas terrorists.
The photo was one of 20 that helped The Associated Press win first place in an international contest for Pictures of the Year earlier this month.
“Palestinian militants drive back to the Gaza Strip with the body of Shani Louk, a German-Israeli dual citizen, during their cross-border attack on Israel, Saturday, 7 October 2023,” reads the caption of the chosen photo, which was reportedly taken by Ali Mahmud, as per The Jerusalem Post.
The organisers uploaded the unblurred photo of Louk’s lifeless body to their Instagram feed along with the news of the AP’s win.
The NY Post report also stated that the Missouri School of Journalism’s Donald W Reynolds Journalism Institute runs the awards.
Notably, the awards claim to be the oldest photojournalism competition in the world.
Massive backlash
People are shocked by the development and are criticising the win heavily on social media.
While some referred to the photographer’s and the agency’s disturbing shot as an “outrageous desecration of Jewish life,” others said it was a sign of disrespect for Louk and her family.
“I am DISGUSTED, SHOCKED and ENRAGED that this @AP image of a murdered Shani Louk from 7 October was given a picture of the year,” one social media user posted on X. “This is the value of Israeli women to you?”
“This is just wrong and sick,” said another user.
Aviva Klompas, a former speechwriting chief at Israel’s UN mission, wanted the photographer who took the picture to face consequences.
“The AP photographer who accompanied jihadi barbarians on their 7 October invasion of Israel has been awarded a prestigious photography prize,” she said.
“He is being celebrated for taking this photo of murder-rapist-terrorists with the brutalised and contorted body of Shani Louk. Seems to me he should be going to jail, not getting a prize,” she added.
In November 2023, HonestReporting, a media watchdog organisation committed to exposing anti-Israel media bias, raised “serious ethical questions” regarding the prompt arrival of several AP and Reuters photojournalists based in Gaza at the scene of 7 October attack.
Acknowledging the image’s inclusion in the winning Team Picture Story of the Year category, HonestReporting posted on X, “Congratulations to AP for winning a Pictures of the Year award. How does it feel to do so on the back of Palestinian photojournalists who infiltrated Israel on 7 October and took photos like the one below of Shani Louk’s dead body in a Hamas pickup? Was RJI bothered about that before bestowing the award?”
However, it looks like the picture was removed after the backlash.
AP and Reuters sued
According to The Times of Israel, earlier this February, the families of Shani Louk and other victims of the Supernova Festival massacre on 7 October filed a civil suit for damages against The Associated Press and Reuters news agencies due to what they allege was the involvement of photojournalists employed or utilised by those agencies in the atrocities that day.
About 360 people partying at the festival held close to Kibbutz Re’im near the Gaza border were murdered by Hamas terrorists. Dozens of them were taken hostage.
According to The Jerusalem Post, in response to the allegations, the AP released a statement on 22 February. It stated that while it has “the deepest sympathy for those affected by the horrific 7 October attacks in Israel,” the lawsuit brought against the organisation for its reporting is “baseless.”
“AP had no advance knowledge of the 7 October attacks, nor have we seen any evidence — including in the lawsuit — that the freelance journalists who contributed to our coverage did. Allegations like this are reckless and create even more potential danger for journalists in the region.”
“Documenting breaking news events around the world — no matter how horrific — is our job. Without AP and other news organisations, the world would not have known what was happening on 7 October.”
About Shani Louk
23-year-old Shani Louk was first reported missing from the music festival from where Hamas militants took many hostage on 7 October.
She quickly became one of the faces of the war after the petrifying images of her lifeless body on the back of pickup truck went viral.
Later, Israeli authorities confirmed she was tragically beheaded by her captors.
“Our hearts are broken,” Israel’s foreign ministry wrote on X.
“Shani, who was kidnapped from a music festival and tortured and paraded around Gaza by Hamas terrorists, experienced unfathomable horrors. “May her memory be a blessing,” it said.
Latest in the Israel-Hamas conflict
Tensions in the West Bank have surged since the start of the war in Gaza, which has killed more than 32,000 people and wounded 74,000, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its tally, but says women and children make up two-thirds of the dead.
Some 1,200 people were killed in Israel and another 250 people abducted when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, triggering the war in Gaza.
Talks have resumed on bringing Israeli officials to the US to discuss the Gaza operation, the White House says.
Israeli strikes in Lebanon kill 16, militant rockets kill 1 Israeli as cross-border violence soars.
US sanctions online media site Gaza Now and its founder for allegedly supporting Hamas.
With inputs from agencies