The war against the Jews (16)
Last week the Palestinian Reuters’ cameraman, Fadel Shana, was said to have been killed by an Israeli tank in the raid in Gaza following the killing of three Israeli soldiers. However, it looks as if his death may have been yet another manipulated piece of propaganda. Initial reports claimed his car had been hit by an Israeli tank even though the car was clearly marked ‘TV’. Yet subsequently, Reuters claimed he had been killed by a weapon fired by the Israelis which upon exploding in mid-air scattered anti-personnel darts. So how could his car have been blown up by a shell that exploded mid-air? Further claims were made that a second shell was fired at the car two minutes later. But this story in the Sydney Morning Herald, which reported the second shell claim, also reported:
Colleagues passing by in an Agence France-Presse armoured car noticed the smoke from the burning vehicle and turned back to investigate. An AFP stills photographer, Mohammed Albaba, said they were approaching the burning Jeep when a second missile struck close to it…The car was thus said to be already burning when it was allegedly struck again. But the picture above is captioned by Getty Images: 'An ambulance worker looks at the body of Reuters' cameraman Fadel Shana as he lies in the road after his car was hit by an Israeli missile'. But does his car look as if it has just been hit by an Israeli missile? It is not burning. It is intact. And if he was killed when the car was blown up, how come his body was in the road? And the original question remains: how can an anti-personnel shell that detonates mid-air have blown up a car?
The implication of the media reports was that the Israelis had deliberately targeted Shana’s car, even though it was clearly marked ’TV'. If the Israelis did kill him, however, it would undoubtedly have been because they believed he was one of the terrorists whom they were targeting; it seems unlikely that the tank in question would have seen the ‘TV’ marker from such a distance. The Israelis have said that their forces had only fired at armed attackers who were shooting at them from close range. It did not know what kind of missile had struck the press vehicle, and it was unaware of reports of a second attack minutes later.
Moreover, it is a curious fact that this was the second time Shana had reportedly been hit by an Israeli missile firing at his car. As Israellycool reports, on that occasion his claims of shrapnel injuries to his arms was hardly consistent with a missile direct hit on his vehicle.
One of the earliest to sniff dirty work at the lens face in Gaza last week was Professor Richard Landes, who has led the field in writing about the staged ‘killing’ of Mohammed al Dura. On his website last week, Landes published this observation by a reader about the pictures of the aftermath of the Israeli raid:
What puzzled me was the following. Two young men (and one bicycle) lie in the road. The young men show some traces of blood, the form of which resembles that produced by a knife wound. No sign of a shell crater or other damage is visible. In the distance is seen a collection of cars, one of which is claimed to belong to a cameraman killed by the same shell. The footage continues by getting closer to this car. No obvious damage, fire or smoke is visible. A new camera angle then shows a vehicle marked with TV insignia in flames with heavy billows of smoke surrounding it and spreading prominently into the air. The camera of the cameraman is displayed amid scenes of grief. My puzzlement is:- whether the injuries displayed on the young men are compatible with a tank shell
- whether a tank shell could have hit both the youngsters and a car 100 meters away
- why the car is not on fire in one image and is very prominently in flames in the other.
Other websites have now excavated much evidence to flesh out this reader’s concerns. Israellycool pulls together evidence from a number of different sites to reveal discrepancies between the various accounts. The Elder of Ziyon, for example, pointed out that this colleague of Shana’s, journalist Yassir Qadih, claimed:
There was nobody around us except a group of children who we were going to film. There were no resistance groups in the area.Yet AP reported that
Shana died along with two bystanders after his car was hit while filming Israeli tank movements
.But it is the photo-journalists’ website Snapped Shot which produces the really important evidence in this case about about notable discrepancies in the pictures. Key is that Shana was supposedly killed by darts from an anti-personnel weapon; yet the picture sequence shows that the car in which he had been travelling subsequently burst into flames; and it took time for the bodies to be shown on the ground in front of the burning car. Snapped Shot speculates that the evidence suggests Shana may have been killed instead by recoil from an anti-tank weapon – ie, a friendly fire killing by Hamas -- and the car was set on fire to destroy the evidence of what had really happened. Is this yet another full-blown media 'fauxtography' scandal -- with Reuters once again in the manipulated frame?
A response from Mark Thompson, managing editor, Reuters News:
I was shocked and appalled to read Melanie Phillips' April 21 blog post "The War Against Israel (16)" concerning the death of Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana last month. It is inaccurate, offensive and defamatory. Fadel, a member of the Reuters Gaza team that won the Royal Television Society award earlier this year, was killed by an Israeli tank while going about his profession in a responsible manner. His colleague Wafa Abu Mizyed was wounded in the attack, and eight mostly teenage bystanders were also killed. The Israel Defense Force does not dispute that its tank opened fire with flechette shells but has yet to release the results of an inquiry into why the order to fire was given.
Not only is your blog extremely distressing for the family and friends of our late colleague, it cynically implies that Reuters has conspired to manipulate this personal and professional tragedy for political aims - nothing could be further from the truth. We are proud of the dignity and professionalism of our staff in Israel, the Palestinian territories and around the world who work hard in all conditions to report the news accurately, independently and without bias. We strive to protect our journalists and the freedom of the press, and have urged the Israeli authorities to release their report as soon as possible so that we can work together on ways to improve safety.