Shani Louk (Courtesy Israel Foreign Ministry)
Social media was erupting in outrage this week after a journalism institute gave an award for a photograph of a Jewish murder victim, one of the hundreds killed in the October 7 Hamas terror attack on Israel.
The New York Post called the image "sickening" and explained it was taken as Hamas terrorists paraded the women's "near-naked body" through the streets of Gaza.
The award, naming a photo-of-the-year, was slammed as "an outrageous desecration of Jewish life."
The Post reported, "The grim photo featuring Shani Louk’s body was among a collection of 20 images that helped the Associated Press secure first place in one of the Pictures of the Year International award categories earlier this month."
It was picked by the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism, but immediately was blasted online as an "outrageous desecration of Jewish life."
Tom Emmer, GOP House whip, said on social media, "RJI thinks a horrifying picture of Shani Louk's half-clothed, dead body is award-winning work … Disgusting."
"I am DISGUSTED, SHOCKED and ENRAGED that this @AP image of a murdered Shani Louk from October 7th was given picture of the year," a social media user posted on Twitter, now called X. "This is the value of Israeli women to you?"
"Wrong and sick," said another.
Louk, 23, was among the scores of music festival-attendees killed or taken hostage when Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, killing some 1,200 civilians, often in horrific ways like beheading babies and burning whole families alive.
Israeli authorities later revealed the woman also had been beheaded.
AP announced the award with an "unblurred image" of the woman's lifeless body on Instagram, the report said.
The report noted others were taking aim at Ali Mahmud, the freelancer who took the picture.
There previous has been an uproar over allegations that freelancers providing images and information to multiple American news organizations knew about the attack, and even accompanied the terrorists.
The Post reported, "Several Israeli American and American Nova survivors sued the AP last month for using freelance photojournalists believed to be 'longstanding Hamas affiliates and full participants in the terrorist attack.'"
The Western Journal reported X user Shoshanna Keats Jaskoll didn't withhold her feelings: "You are the most vile of human beings to profit and reward such behavior. May you rot in hell with these terrorists and may the entire world see the emptiness of your souls."
And the report noted Israeli lawmaker Danny Danon said, "This photo captures Hamas terrorists desecrating the body of Shani Louk, may her soul rest in peace. Yet the @AP news agency proudly received an award for it. Their continued pride in their photographers' 'work' and involvement in the atrocities is shameful."
The Daily Mail cited the "fury" over the award being given to the image.
And it advised, "A prestigious university has been branded a 'disgrace' after it awarded the world's oldest photo journalism prize for a picture of a mutilated and murdered October 7 victim."
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