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Anas Zayed Fteiha<\/span>, a Palestinian photojournalist in the Gaza Strip, filed a legal claim seeking an injunction against global publishing giant Axel Springer, which he accuses of violating his constitutional rights by falsely portraying him as a Hamas propagandist in Germany\u2019s largest tabloid, BILD.<\/p>\n The filing against a European news organization is a first-of-its-kind legal strategy for a journalist working in Palestine. \u201cI want to prove the truth cannot be erased by false allegations,\u201d Fteiha told The Intercept.<\/p>\n Fteiha\u2019s legal claim, submitted in the Frankfurt am Main Regional Court, stems from a BILD article published on August 5 under the headline \u201cThis Gaza photographer stages Hamas propaganda.\u201d<\/p>\n The BILD piece singled out Fteiha, alleging he fabricated images of starving Palestinians to push a Hamas narrative. To underscore this charge, BILD published a picture showing Fteiha kneeling to photograph people in Gaza holding empty pots in front of a metal barrier. BILD framed the scene as an attempt to exaggerate the levels of hunger in Gaza. Later in August, a United Nations-backed body declared a famine in Gaza<\/a>.<\/p>\n The article claims Fteiha staged the photo and describes him as a \u201cjournalist\u201d three times, always in quotation marks.<\/p>\n \u201cIn fact it was a genuine moment of human suffering,\u201d Fteiha told The Intercept.<\/p>\n \u201cI could be targeted simply because false reports about me were published.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Fteiha was at the food distribution site as a freelancer for the Turkish news agency Anadolu and published a range of photographs online from that day. To Fteiha, BILD\u2019s reporting is part of a campaign to discredit Palestinian journalists, he told The Intercept.<\/p>\n \u201cFalsely accusing me of staging propaganda exposes me to threats and undermines the supposed protections afforded to journalists,\u201d he said. \u201cIt means I could be targeted simply because false reports about me were published.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Fteiha is seeking an injunction proceeding, an emergency procedure aimed at reaching a quicker resolution than a typical lawsuit. If granted by the court, the injunction would require Axel Springer to correct the statements in the article that he alleges are false and would oblige the publisher to cover the costs of the legal proceedings brought by Fteiha. <\/p>\n Axel Springer has not responded to questions from The Intercept. A BILD group communications spokesperson said that the company has not yet received Fteiha\u2019s filing and therefore cannot comment on it.<\/p>\n Fteiha\u2019s legal action could test whether German courts are willing to hold one of the country\u2019s most powerful media outlets accountable for defamatory coverage that critics say has fueled the dehumanization<\/a> of Palestinians. Just days after Fteiha was singled out in the August article, BILD ran the image of Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif \u2014 who was<\/a> killed by an Israeli strike <\/a>hours earlier \u2014\u00a0with the headline: \u201cTerrorist disguised as journalist killed in Gaza.\u201d The phrasing was later revised to \u201cKilled journalist allegedly was a terrorist.\u201d<\/p>\n That article, too, is mentioned in the filing: \u201cIt seems that [Axel Springer] is promoting a narrative portraying journalists in Gaza as accomplices of Hamas.\u201d<\/p>\n Fteiha\u2019s claim, filed by German press lawyer Ingrid Yeboah with support from the European Legal Support Center, rejects BILD\u2019s assertions that Fteiha staged or manipulated his images and that he masquerades as a journalist. It argues that the BILD reporting includes \u201cgravely defamatory and life-threatening statements\u201d that constitute a violation of Fteiha\u2019s \u201cgeneral right of personality\u201d under German constitutional law, which protects individuals against defamation.<\/p>\n BILD never sought Fteiha\u2019s comment before publication, his filing alleges, despite claiming otherwise in the article. BILD\u2019s communications director Christian Senft told The Intercept: \u201cAs a matter of principle, we do not comment on our sources or editorial processes.\u201d<\/p>\n The article, the filing says, insinuates that Fteiha deliberately withheld photos showing men at the food distribution site in order to distort reality and bolster a \u201cconstructed narrative\u201d serving Hamas.<\/p>\n Yet before the BILD article was published, Fteiha had already posted several images from the day in question \u2014 depicting men as well as women and children waiting for food \u2014 as a report by Der Spiegel showed.<\/p>\n The filing argues that BILD deliberately withheld this fact in order to maintain its narrative that a Gaza-based journalist was spreading Hamas propaganda.<\/p>\n BILD further attempted to link Fteiha to Hamas, he alleges, by citing an Instagram image<\/a> he co-published that reads \u201cFree Palestine\u201d \u2014 describing this as Fteiha\u2019s \u201cmission\u201d \u2014 and by framing his freelance work for Anadolu as \u201csubordinate to Turkish President and Israel-hater Recep Tayyip Erdogan.\u201d Both examples, the filing argues, were wrongfully presented as evidence of political extremism intended to delegitimize Fteiha.<\/p>\n Before the BILD article came out, the liberal news outlet S\u00fcddeutsche Zeitung, or SZ, published a piece titled, \u201cHow real are the images from Gaza?\u201d BILD referred to the article as it questioned the authenticity of photos taken by journalists in Gaza. The SZ article consulted experts and published the same image of Fteiha photographing civilians behind a metal barrier.<\/p>\n Although SZ did not mention Fteiha by name, the article \u2014 together with BILD\u2019s \u2014\u00a0was quickly amplified on social media<\/a> by Israel\u2019s foreign ministry. Pointing to the German coverage as proof that Hamas manipulates global opinion, the ministry branded Fteiha an \u201cIsrael- and Jew-hater\u201d serving Hamas.<\/p>\n The U.S\u2013Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation quickly joined in<\/a>, followed by major Israeli outlets such as The Times of Israel,<\/a> Ynet<\/a>, and the Jerusalem Post<\/a>. Israeli President Isaac Herzog echoed the fabrication narrative<\/a> as well, holding up the photo of Fteiha at a conference in Estonia and citing German press reports. \u201cIt was all staged,\u201d Herzog declared.<\/p>\n Christopher Resch, a spokesperson for Reporters Without Borders Germany, said that German media appeared eager to amplify Israel\u2019s campaign to delegitimize a Palestinian journalist.<\/p>\n \u201cNewsrooms should always \u2014\u00a0especially when it comes to war reporting \u2014 apply the highest professional and ethical standards and never report carelessly,\u201d Resch said. \u201cIf media reports can be used to legitimise criminal decisions by the Israeli military, one can assume they will be used.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n