The most concerning case, however, involves freelance photojournalist Samar Abu Elouf. In early April, the International Women’s Media Foundation gave Abu Elouf its Anja Niedringhaus Courage in Photojournalism Award. Abu Elouf, along with Yousef Masoud, was also a co-winner of the George Polk Award.

American award committees fawned over Abu Elouf’s work, but they were either unaware or didn’t care that she appears to have connections to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine—a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. The PFLP listed one Samar Abu Elouf as an instructor in a series of media courses it organized in 2012, which taught news reporting, investigative journalism, photojournalism, and new media to 60 participants. At these courses’ graduation ceremony, a member of the PFLP’s Central Committee stated that the courses are “part of the Front’s media office strategy” aimed at “bolstering the role and status of national democratic media committed to our national cause.” Nearly a decade later, at a ceremony honoring Gaza’s media institutions, another senior PFLP official praised Palestinian journalists as messengers of “resistance.”

The revelation that a U.S. and EU-designated terror group has trained a new generation of media professionals—and that American institutions have awarded one of the terror group’s instructors—is alarming. Those who attended such classes will likely seek to advance the PFLP’s agenda under the guise of journalism. Who knows how many other media courses Gaza’s terror groups have arranged over the years, and how many of their graduates are contributing to media outlets?