REUTERS CAMERAMAN KILLED IN GAZA: ISRAEL ACCUSED
The death of any journalist who risks his or her life to bring stories
from a combat zone is tragic and that of Reuters' Palestinian
cameraman Fadel Shana is no different. Israel has initiated an
investigation into the incident but this has not prevented Human
Rights Watch and some Palestinian sources from accusing Israel of
deliberately targeting Shana. Writing in The Jerusalem Post, Calev Ben
David addresses some salient points:
Gaza - all of it - is a war zone. This is not Israel's doing, but that
of its Hamas rulers, who have chosen to use every inch of it as a
staging ground for indiscriminate terrorist acts specifically aimed at
Israeli civilians.
The death of Shana came on a day of fierce gunfights in this part of
Gaza, begun earlier when IDF forces detected Hamas gunmen attempting
to penetrate the border fence, and moved in to intercept them - with
the result being the death of three soldiers, a fact that several
subsequent media accounts of the incident have failed to mention.
Almost all of the articles do mention that Shana was wearing a vest
marked "Press," as was his vehicle parked next to him - one of the
reasons HRW claims his death may have been deliberate. As it turns
out, Shana actually succeeded in filming the tank as it fired near his
position right before he was killed. In the frames of that footage
available on the Internet, it is not easy to make out any of the
details of the tank, which reportedly was some 1.5 kilometers away.
Thus, it would certainly have been difficult for the tank crew to make
out "Press" markings from that distance with the naked eye.
But even if they had, there is no guarantee they would have held their
fire if they believed there was Palestinian shooting emanating from
that particular area. And unfortunately, Gazan terrorists have also
utilized vehicles disguised with "Press" markings, including in an
attempted car-bombing attack on a border position last June.
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