Anas Zayed Fteiha Archives

Here is Muhammad’s famous dictum, “War is deceit,” playing out on an international scale.

“This photographer stages Hamas propaganda,” translated from “Dieser Gaza-Fotograf inszeniert die Hamas-Propaganda,” by Moritz J. Miller, Hans-Jörg Wald, and Aaron Deuser, Bild, August 5, 2025:

Berlin – emaciated children, desperate mothers and people who beg with empty pots around food: these photos from Gaza go around the world. They move millions – and influence politics worldwide.

But research by the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” now questioned exactly these recordings: Are some pictures from Gaza specifically staged-and part of a propaganda strategy of the Hamas terrorists?

The hunger is (almost always) real – but the pictures often not quite. A much more common photo recently showed desperate people in front of a meal edition on a truck. Towards you: the photographer Anas Zayed Fteiha, freelance “journalist” on behalf of the Turkish news agency Anadolu.

People wag with their pots, get to eat shortly afterwards. But: photographer Fteiha does not obviously spread the pictures, and at the request of BILD, does not go back on request which recordings he took there.

Possible problem: The scenery, also captured by other photographers, mainly shows adult men who are waiting for food – and get it.

Does Fteiha have no use for this?

His photos – spread by “Stern” and “New York Magazine”, from CNN and BBC, from Deutschlandfunk, the “Young World” and also from BILD – prefer to show chaos, destruction. And above all: children, mothers, suffering in large recording and with perfect lighting.

In fact, the suffering of civilians in Gaza is great. Many people were killed against Israel in the Hamas War, many hunger. However, the staging of need often benefits Hamas and its propaganda.

Because “journalist” Fteiha apparently has an order: “Free Palestine” (free Palestine). So it is on a sultry painting that he presented on his Instagram account-in a combat gear with the proud inscription “Press”. The “artist” who created the picture for Fteiha: an avowed Jewish hater.

Another video has the heading “Fuck Israel”. No wonder, because Fteiha is also active at Europe.palestine.network, a “pro-Palestinian collective” for “global actions in Europe”-which not only documents the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, but also drives “resistance” against Israel internationally.

An activist, camouflaged as a photographer and video reporter, on behalf of a news agency who is directly subject to Turkish President and Israel-Hasser Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (71), who has promoted, financed and hidden Hamas terrorists for years.

The only question is: Why do German and international agencies use the photos of such an opinion fighter, although many of the pictures are obviously selected or provided one -sided?

BILD asked for photo agencies. The German press agency and Agence France Press said that they would not work with the “journalist” Fteiha and carefully check the pictures of other photo reporters and their reputation before publication. Reuters explains that their photos “correspond to the standards for accuracy, independence and impartiality”.

The German Journalist Association (DJV) warns: parties to war use pictures in a targeted manner-to influence public opinion. Professional. Strategically. Emotionally. Of course, this also applies to Israel, which so far has no independent reporter to Gaza.

Hamas controls all pictures

Consequence: Almost only Palestinian photographers in the Gaza Strip-quite a few with Hamas connections. Historian and photography expert Gerhard Paul on the “SZ”: “In southern Gazas, Hamas controls image production 100 percent.” The goal: create pity in the West, stir up anger on Israel.

And it works! Hardly anyone is more skillful in the propaganda than the Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist organizations: As early as 2002, the then Palestinian chief Jassir Arafat († 75, 2004) presented himself after the occupation of West Bank by Israeli troops in his “fortress” in Ramallah with candlelight and pocket lamps-the lonely PLO fighter desperately in the dark …

An obvious propaganda trick. But even then many agencies obviously did not notice that the video reporters in Arafat “prison” only made the effect possible by switching off all battery -operated headlights on the cameras. Videos showed the PLO leader again in a glistening light minutes later-because “the press” had agreed to enable the great snapshot.