A journalist arrested by Israeli police on suspicion of inciting and supporting terror works for Western media outlets, HonestReporting revealed on Sunday (March 17), calling into question her objectivity and her outlets’ journalistic standards.
Latifeh Abdellatif, a Jerusalem photojournalist who, according to her social media, freelances for Reuters, ABC News, and the BBC, shared a post calling for “martyrdom” along with a video of former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, as well as other posts glorifying terrorists, police said in a statement.
The statement did not disclose Abdellatif’s name, which HonestReporting later revealed based on Palestinian media reports.
According to her Facebook page, Abdellatif works also for the United Nations Population Fund, and has shared a post declaring that “Al-Aqsa has always been and will always remain for Muslims alone,” deliberately denying Jewish history surrounding the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism.
But none of this prevented the world’s leading news organizations from letting her report on the region.
Meet journalist Latifa Abdel-Latif. She’s just been arrested by Israeli police on suspicion of inciting and supporting terror.
According to her Instagram bio, she’s worked for major media outlets, including @Reuters, @ABC & @BBCNews. 🧵https://t.co/cxDg0LXJyT pic.twitter.com/Im6QpGgEzP
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) March 17, 2025
Police said Abdellatif’s suspected post about Sinwar, the mastermind of the October 7 massacre in southern Israel, showed the arch-terrorist speaking “about the greatest gift that the enemy could give him: to die and ascend to heaven before God as a martyr,” with a caption that reads in Arabic, “wants to die as a martyr.”
So it should ring alarm bells that Abdellatif was among the contributors to a profile piece about Sinwar for ABC News.
Another of Abdellatif’s posts, according to police, included a photo of the body of terrorist Hassan Qatani wrapped in a Hamas flag, with the caption, “Raise the camera on your shoulders and document the situation. You are leaving with burdens that you can no longer carry.” Qatani was one of two terrorists who killed British national Lucy Dee and two of her daughters in a 2023 drive-by shooting.
In other posts by Abdellatif, police said, videos were found featuring terrorists from the Jenin Brigades with the caption “Only God can make them drop their weapons,” and terrorists from the PFLP praising all factions fighting against the “occupier.”
Related Reading: Reuters and Getty Images Give Platform to Gaza Photojournalist Kissed by Hamas’ Sinwar
But it seems her bosses in Western media either didn’t know or didn’t want to know about these posts.
Reuters’ database contains over 150 multimedia items shot by Abdellatif, including many from eastern Jerusalem and the Temple Mount / Al-Aqsa compound.
But a search of her Facebook profile reveals dozens of biased videos from Al-Aqsa. One of them, from 2017, shows a group of Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount whom she labels as “settlers” who should not be allowed entry:
I remember exactly a year ago, the settlers could barely walk around Al-Aqsa… Now, not only are they walking, but they are also praying and even prostrating on the ground!
But the one thing we are all certain of is that no matter what they do or try, Al-Aqsa has always been and will always remain for Muslims alone, by the command of Allah, the Almighty!
#AlAqsaMosque
Can a person with such views report objectively on one of the most sensitive sites in the world? The answer should be clear to any news outlet that respects its consumers.
It’s now up to the Israeli justice system to judge whether Abdellatif’s posts amount to incitement or not under Israeli law. Irrespective of the result of any investigation and subsequent trial, the posts demonstrate bias that compromises her ability to call herself a journalist.
She did not need to get arrested for her news outlets to notice that.
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