Israeli airstrike on Reuters SUV? (Update: Video added)
posted at 6:19 pm on August 26, 2006 by Allahpundit
Send to a Friend |
Share on Facebook | printer-friendly
The BBC says the cameraman, Fadel Shana, is with Reuters. The other journalist, who is seriously injured, is affiliated with a local website. Three bystanders were also hurt. Witnesses say the car was clearly marked “TV” on all sides. It was also armored, which might explain why there were survivors.
Were the two journalists inside the vehicle or outside? The Beeb says in. The AP says otherwise:
According to witnesses, a Reuters cameraman and a freelance cameraman working for an Arabic network were standing outside the vehicle in the Shajaiyeh neighborhood of Gaza filming a nearby Israeli raid when the missiles hit the car.
Video has already been released; once Fox rebroadcasts it, I’ll have it here. Here’s hoping the victims come through okay.
Update: Sounds like the cameraman’s going to make it. It’s the other guy who’s in trouble.
Update: The cameraman appears to have been knocked unconscious but otherwise suffered no “major bodily wounds.”
Update: JPost splits the difference — they were inside the car but getting out when the two missiles hit:
The Reuters cameraman, Fadel Shama’a, 23, and Sabah Hamida, 25, who worked for a local television company, had the doors open and were about to get out of the armored vehicle in the nearby Shajaiyeh neighborhood to film the raid when it was struck by the missiles, according to Shamas Odeh, chief of Reuters TV in Gaza.
Update: Here’s the video from Fox. I’ll keep an eye out for more. Update: Added some new footage.
Update: LGF cites a Reuters report id’ing the second journalist as belonging to the Palestinian Media Group. They’re supposedly an Internet outfit — but their page appears to be offline right now.
Update: The IAF responds:
“During the operation, there was an aerial attack on a suspicious vehicle that drove in a suspicious manner right by the forces and in between the Palestinian militant posts,” army spokeswoman Captain Noa Meir said.
“This car was not identified by the army as a press vehicle. This has been a combat area. It is not recommended for anyone to be around. We do not target the press. If journalists were hurt, we regret it.”
Update: SeeDubya says that sort of damage couldn’t have been caused by a rocket — but it might have been caused by a 20mm shell.
Update: There’s a little confusion about who the second journalist works for. Dan Riehl sends along a report from the Bangkok Post that claims he’s with Dubai Television.
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
Just something to think about. The DU and Daily KOS crowd were jubilent when the FOX reporters were kidnapped. Which reflects poorly on them. (As if we didn’t really know what they were all about)
So let’s not do the same. I would think that expressing joy or satisfaction over al-Reuters getting hit over this would probably make us look like a bunch of turds.
Yeah, I know they seem to take some sort of un-holy joy in smearing us and distorting the facts on the ground in the middle east. And they deserve every last bit of bad press this and other blogs were able to uncover recently.
Let’s not take it too far and start gloating. AP’s last sentence bears repeating.
Anyway, that’s enough out of me. I’m shutting up now and you all can go back to enjoying your Saturday.
EFG on August 26, 2006 at 6:31 PM
No, it would make us a bunch of turds.
Allahpundit on August 26, 2006 at 6:33 PM
They’re in close proximity to an Israeli raid, filming it. In the past we have seen instances of Palistinians using UN vehicles and ambulances, and “Media” vehicles to conduct hit & runs on Israeli troops. They’ve used ambulances and media vehicles in the past to evacuate their fighters after skirmishes with the IDF. It’s a well documented tactic of the enemys of Israel.
If it’s true and actual journalists were injured, I hope they’re okay. But what’s the beef? They know the tactics of Israel’s enemys. Maybe if they weren’t “nearby” an Israeli raid, and had filmed from farther away, they’d be okay. They could take pictures from afar and then photshop them to make it look like they want to instead of actually being in a combat zone. They’re good at that.
SilverStar830 on August 26, 2006 at 6:33 PM
EFG, I don’t care for your assumption.
When I heard that al_Reuters had reported this story I decided to wait to see if it was confirmed. Now I’m waiting to hear the details.
The comparison of the concern shown for these journalists against what we saw when the Fox reporters were captured is striking. Is there a name for such blatant hypocracy?
DannoJyd on August 26, 2006 at 6:44 PM
Given the MSM’s penchant for terrorists and all things anti-Israel, its hard for me to have much sympathy for anyone associtated with Reuters. Sorry.
.
GT on August 26, 2006 at 6:49 PM
True. Well said.
EFG on August 26, 2006 at 6:49 PM
My assumption of what? That you would act like a decent, moral individual and not crow about this? My assumption that you would say something reasonable like the following?
It’s a peace offering, DannoJyd. Feel free to do with it as you see fit.
Yes there is. It’s name is…
wait for it….
“Blatant Hypocracy”
;-)
OK, if there is an english major out there who can come up with a word that expresses that thought in a pithy and concise way, well that would be cool.
EFG on August 26, 2006 at 6:58 PM
“Hypocrisy”
I was a Spelling major.
mikeyboss on August 26, 2006 at 7:39 PM
Now that I’ve seen video of the vehicle… what kind of missile did they use… a Jericho-2 SpitWad Turbo missile?
SilverStar830 on August 26, 2006 at 7:39 PM
Bingo!
THeDRiFTeR on August 26, 2006 at 7:45 PM
after the Ambulance hoax (wow, a missle goes through the roof but never reaches the floor!) color me unconvinced at the report.
Missles (plural) hit the Reuter car and it is still intact?
Uh. no.
Darleen on August 26, 2006 at 7:46 PM
Ya, that’s it. Or even better, maybe if the press weren’t allowed, under penalty of oops sorry bout that missile, to even enter any of the occupied territories. The world doesn’t need to know what the IDF is up to. It is after all Israel, and Israel could never do anything evil, could they?
THeDRiFTeR on August 26, 2006 at 7:51 PM
mikeyboss, it is hard, damn hard to make a correcting a man’s spelling mistakes amusing or appreciated. Almost impossible.
Congratulations. You pulled it off somehow.
Spelling major. Heh.
EFG on August 26, 2006 at 8:05 PM
EFG, I believe that you assumed that someone here would cheer over the news of those reporters being hurt. I disagree with that assumption.
The missile went right for the engine compartment causing me to conclude it was of heat seeking origin, but the video was choppy on my end as it looked like the missile disappeared without showing an explosion just as it should have hit.
DannoJyd on August 26, 2006 at 8:17 PM
Never mind. It was Fox switching the pictures that looked like a missile on my end. :o(.
DannoJyd on August 26, 2006 at 8:19 PM
You know, I won’t rejoice about this. I won’t be a “turd”. But I’m sitting here waiting for that caring feeling to hit.
..um, still waiting. Oh, there’s something…
…nope, not it.
Oh well, I guess I just have less and less human feelings for known untrustworthy journalist outfits. (i.e. Reuters)
tickleddragon on August 26, 2006 at 8:25 PM
Ah! I think that’s our first mention of Sabra and Shatila. Or as I like to call it, “The Great Equalizer.”
I’m not accusing TD of using it that way, mind you. But it’s good to have it finally out there.
Allahpundit on August 26, 2006 at 8:26 PM
My bad, but more here on Hypocracy.
I wonder how long I’ve been misspelling that word. [Bush Word!]
DannoJyd on August 26, 2006 at 8:28 PM
“The Great Equalizer”???
Now you disappoint me.
And this is why it was bad for us:
They hate us for our freedom? (All emphasis mine).
THeDRiFTeR on August 26, 2006 at 8:40 PM
Oh yes indeed. Rattle off a litany of Muslim atrocities to an Islamist apologist and you’ll get “Sabra and Shatila” back at you every time.
9/11!
What about Sabra and Shatila?
Madrid!
What about Sabra and Shatila?
Beslan!
What about Sabra and Shatila?
London!
What about Sabra and Shatila?
Munich!
What about Sabra and Shatila?
Mumbai!
What about Sabra and Shatila?
And on and on. Sabra and Shatila was, it seems, a horror unparalleled in human history — capable of justifying atrocity after atrocity after atroctity committed by fundamentalists in the name of Islam.
And you disappoint me, TD. Because the other answer always given in this conversation is “Baruch Goldstein.” Remember him? I know you do; I suspect you’re just holding that card to play later, during some conversation about the fact that most of the religiously-motivated mass murder happening these days seems to be perpetrated by followers of Islam. “Aha!” you say. “What about Baruch Goldstein??” A winning rejoinder!
You will, I hope, concede that not every grievance originates with being wronged; sometimes instances of being wronged are enlisted to advance the grievance. We are, after all, talking about people here who, in many cases, claim still to harbor hard feelings over the fucking Crusades. Forgive me for thinking that they start from the premise that they’re victims and life is unfair, and then seek out evidence to back that up.
Allahpundit on August 26, 2006 at 9:02 PM
Hmmm… well, if you think “non-combatants” running around where bullets and other ordinance are zipping through the air over their heads is a good idea, and you have some camera skills, call Reuters. I heard they could use a couple of new “Palestinian Media Group” camermen in their “Arabic Network” outlet.
SilverStar830 on August 26, 2006 at 9:07 PM
Sabra and Shatila? Forget that.It was really those flushed korans in 2005 that caused 9/11.
eagles5 on August 26, 2006 at 9:13 PM
9/11, Madrid, Beslan, London, Munich, Mumbai and Hebron (Goldstein) were all atrocities committed by criminals, not our allies who had given us their word, allowing us to believe that we could give a written promise impossible to keep.
I never said “what about Sabra and Shatila?”. My point was “trust, but verify”.
THeDRiFTeR on August 26, 2006 at 9:16 PM
My point was “trust, but verify”. And the brave men and women who make up the press corps, al-Reuters (as you call them) notwithstanding, makes that possible for the average shmo like you and I. You think I trust the government to give the low down on what happening?
THeDRiFTeR on August 26, 2006 at 9:27 PM
Just as a humourous note, when AP started going off on “TD” about “Sabra and Shatila”, I went and looked at all of tickleddragon’s posts. And for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what in the heck AP was refering to.
Until it finally hit me that TD could also refer to The Drifter. And then, with a little more reading, it made sense.
Now I’m not blamin’ AP for makin’ me feel like a half-retarded monkey for a couple of minutes with that abreviation. I’m just mentioning it.
EFG on August 26, 2006 at 9:31 PM
I missed that, but deliberately so. I went with “ignorance is bliss.” Thank you for at least not providing quotes.
“Screw ‘em” probably wouldn’t be appropriate here, either.
bamapachyderm on August 26, 2006 at 9:42 PM
Drifter: Trust but verify applies to EVERYTHING in Wikipedia. It’s a horribly inaccurate and biased source. Check the talk (”discussion”) pages on political articles before you decide the articles are legit. I suspect (I will not click a Wikipedia link) that there’s a huge war history in that one’s discussion page, and you may find conflicting accounts/opinion there.
bamapachyderm on August 26, 2006 at 9:45 PM
Reuters and most western news agencies have taken the side of Hamas and Hezbollah in this latest conflict and have always been sympathetic to the Palestinians and hostile to Israel, so I don’t really care if they were hit by Israeli missiles or not. If they are going into the territory of terrorists to get a news story, then they have assumed the risks and if they get into trouble or are kiled in the middle of this conflict, they made the choice.
Umnumzana on August 26, 2006 at 10:37 PM
THeDRiFTeR on August 26, 2006 at 11:02 PM
Okay…
Driving around at night…
in the middle of a combat raid…
in an armored truck,…
and they got shot…
D’uh!
I’m having a hard time feeling sympathetic.
Lawrence on August 26, 2006 at 11:47 PM
My point was “trust, but verify”. And the brave men and women who make up the press corps, al-Reuters (as you call them) notwithstanding, makes that possible for the average shmo like you and I. You think I trust the government to give the low down on what happening?
If there’s one thing we learned from the Lebanon fiasco, it’s that we can’t trust the press to give us the low down on what’s happening, either. As if we didn’t know that already…
Lehuster on August 27, 2006 at 12:58 AM
So much for that… judging from some of the comments above.
If turds run downhill, my comment better have a big umbrella.
Mark Jaquith on August 27, 2006 at 1:03 AM
Last time I checked Wikipedia Rachel Corrie was some saint slash college kid who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, Palestine (as in Arab Palestine, not the Zionist Occupied thingie from pre-1948) was a country in the Near East with a rich cultural and societal heritage tens of thousands of years old, and both Sharon and Bush jr. had 666 tattooed to their heads or something.
Jeff Harrell had the ultimate line on Wikipedia’s “trustworthiness”:
What do you get when you stir a spoon of shit in a gallon of ice? A gallon of shit.
Niko on August 27, 2006 at 5:17 AM
there has probably been more damage to that vehicle by the “car swarming” Palestinians by looting than the actual strike by Israel.
gary on August 27, 2006 at 7:27 AM
I see no reason to gloat over it.
But neither do I see any reason to wring my hands. They chose to be in a war zone, and in doing so, they assume all the risks.
The difference between the Fox crew and these reporters is (1) the Fox people were DELIBERATELY kidnapped and threatened by the very people they were going to report on, and (2) the Reuters people were accidently struck by a combatant (not the residents) during operations in a war zone.
I don’t consider them to be equivalent issues.
I’ll make no bones that I am still turned off by Reuters over their peddling of photoshopped pictures to aid and abet Hezbollah’s propaganda. I remain unconvinced that it was “accidental” either.
But that doesn’t make me want to gloat over the misfortune of men just trying to do their job — even if I don’t agree about the way they are doing it or their biases.
georgej on August 27, 2006 at 7:41 AM
Like Steve Centanni made the choice to go into Gaza. Like Danny Pearl made the choice to go into Pakistan. Like Jill Carroll made the choice to go into Iraq.
Like Giuliana Sgrena went…[Disregard that - Ed.]Yes, these are dangerous places, but I hope we can all agree that we like having reporters in them to tell us what we’d otherwise not know. How well, or how honestly they do their jobs is a second question that comes well after the one in which we decide whether we mind them being killed/kidnapped/etc…
Pablo on August 27, 2006 at 7:56 AM
Frankly, I think that Lebanese Christians have paid the price of Sabra and Shatila, an attack committed by Lebanese Christians.
As for Israel’s complicity in Sharon’s turning a blind eye, someone please direct me to the instances when Arabs have protected or defended Israel from attacks by anyone.
Pablo on August 27, 2006 at 8:05 AM
and we know how the terrorist organizations like Hezbollah would never use an improperly marked vehicle. I don’t want to draw rolley eyes here … but think about it.
:-)
One Angry Christian on August 27, 2006 at 11:04 AM
Sh*t happens in war, especially to those journalists visiting front lines with the intention of filing a false and/or distorted story about what is happening.
ptolemy on August 27, 2006 at 12:48 PM
What else did they intend to do? How do you come by your information? Does a flying missile know what they intended to do?
Oh, and where is the front line in Gaza?
Pablo on August 27, 2006 at 12:58 PM
I think he’s commenting on the risks that are present with respect to reporters who embed with a terrorist organization.
And turn around is fair play. What would the media be saying if a reporter embedded with the IDF was accidently killed by Hezbollah fire?
georgej on August 27, 2006 at 3:55 PM