Soon after Hamas launched its Oct. 7 attack in Israel, journalists on the scene recorded images documenting the violence. Now, questions by an Israeli media watchdog group about those images are fueling inaccurate and harmful online claims.

“So, recently people started asking a very good question,” says a man in a Nov. 11 TikTok video. “They wondered how CNN and The Associated Press were able to get such up close footage of the massacre on Oct. 7. And, once attention was drawn to that question, CNN and The Associated Press had to admit the horrific truth: they knew it was going to happen and, to make sure that they were the only ones who got to report on it, they didn’t tell anyone.”

TikTok identified this video as part of its efforts to counter inauthentic, misleading or false content. (Read more about PolitiFact’s partnership with TikTok.)

The video’s claim is inaccurate. Neither CNN nor The Associated Press “admitted” knowing anything about Hamas’ planned assault before it happened. Representatives from the news outlets rejected the claim and said that freelance journalists in the region began sending in photos more than an hour after the attack began.

How a website post led to false claims

HonestReporting.com, an Israeli watchdog group that later told the AP it doesn’t “claim to be a news organization” said it was only “raising questions” when it made a Nov. 8 post asking how Gaza photojournalists were able to capture up-close shots of Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault.

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