Questions cloud IDF probe of journo death

The Israeli military has closed the book and cleared the tank crew that fired at least two shells at a Reuters television crew in Gaza, killing cameraman 24-year-old Fadel Shana and eight other bystanders in April.

But the investigation did little to clear the air.

If anything, the IDF review has raised more questions.

As reported last week, an Israeli military investigation has concluded that the decision to open fire was justified, if tragic.

The six-page, unclassified letter from the IDF to Reuters, which you can read here, sets out the Israeli justification.

The tank crew was in a battle zone in Gaza after three Israeli soldiers had been killed.

Another tank had been disabled earlier in the day by an RPG.

The tank crew saw two men in flak jackets with an unidentified black object on a tripod set on a rise about a mile away.

The crew asked commanders for an OK to open fire. The commanders gave the OK and at least two shells were fired.

It might sound reasonable. Until you begin looking into the details.

Reuters raised eleven unanswered questions in its reply to the IDF.

(Here's Part One and Part Two of the Reuters letter.)

One cloud hangs over the tank crew's request to open fire.   

One way to address the questions about that decision would be to listen to the communication going on between the tank crews and commanders who gave them approval to fire.

It would be a critical piece of audio that could help explain what happened.

Except that there is no tape.

"For reasons I cannot detail," Brig.  Gen. Avihai Mandelblit wrote to Reuters, "the relevant communications were not recorded during the incident."

The IDF's cloud of secrecy raises questions about why the communications weren't recorded and why the IDF can't explain why there is no tape.

In the letter, the IDF also contends that wearing flak jackets in a war zone is in-and-of-itself evidence of hostile intent.

"The clear factual findings regarding the incident show that the tank crew identified Mr. Shana and Mr. Mizyed [the Reuters sound man injured in the attack], along with the black-tripod mounted object they carried and directed at the tank, as a potential threat to the tank and its crew," Mandelblit wrote in his letter. "This suspicion was strongly supported by the hostilities of the previous hours (which included an anti-tank attack), the conduct of Mr. Shana and Mr. Mizyed (who were both wearing body armor, common to Palestinian terrorists)..."

On its own, that is a remarkable contention that puts every journalist working in the West Bank or Gaza at extreme risk.

After Fadel was killed in April, the IDF issued a blunt warning to reporters in which it said journalists were on their own when they entered war zones.

Now the IDF appears to be saying that journalists will be treated as hostile if they wear traditional flak jackets to protect themselves when they work in war zones.

Beyond that, Fadel was wearing a blue flak jacket with "PRESS" written on it. It is the kind most commonly used by reporters here. Militants don't typically wear blue flak jackets with "PRESS" written on them.

The central question remains: Did the Reuters crew pose a threat to the Israeli tanks?

The IDF notes that another Israeli tank had been disabled earlier in the day by an RPG. But an RPG would not have had the range to hit the tanks set on a hill more than a mile away. So even if Fadel had been preparing to fire an RPG, it would have fallen far short of the tanks.

The IDF suggests that the crew thought the camera on the tall tripod might be a mortar tube, but traditional mortar tubes don't look much like a camera tripod.

Finally, the IDF contends that Fadel could have been preparing to fire a more-advanced anti-tank missile, even though there is little evidence that Gaza militants have used any such weapons in battle.

While I am currently in the US, my McClatchy colleague in Jerusalem has been asking the IDF all week for some specific information to back up their claim about Palestinians in Gaza using anti-tank missiles.

So far they have provided McClatchy with nothing substantive. They've offered no dates, no specifics, no pictures, nothing.

I've asked colleagues who specialize in Palestinian weaponry who say they know of of no solid reports that Gaza fighters have used advanced anti-tank missiles on the battlefield that would have been capable of hitting the tanks from a mile away.

Gaza militants have some types of homemade missiles, but they aren't able to hit a tank from that distance.

Israeli intelligence suspects that Hamas has smuggled in more advanced weaponry, but there has been little on the battlefield to support those claims.

Another open question concerns the timeline, which is unclear in the IDF letter.

The IDF concedes that Fadel had been filming for at least four minutes before the tank opened fire.

Presumably, that gave the tank crew plenty of time to determine what the Reuters crew was doing - and if it was a threat.

The very fact that Fadel set up in plain view of the tank and was filming for at least four minutes should be one indication that he was not trying to attack. (Most militants don't lackadaisically set up their weapons in plain view of a tank and then take several minutes to fire off a round.)

But the letter doesn't make it clear when the tank crew spotted the Reuters crew, how long it took them to ask for permission to open fire, and how long it took for commanders to OK the decision to open fire.

"The upshot of this whole tragedy is that raising a camera in Gaza as a journalist could get you killed," wrote Robert Mahoney, deputy director of the Committee to Protect Journalists in a worthwhile blog posting on the IDF investigation.

The IDF may be done asking questions about Fadel's killing. But it still needs to provide more answers.

Comments

[Laura]

Thank you for this post and for sticking to this story.

[Yisrael Medad]

I see you have completely ignored any of the comments made in your last post on this subject and in not relating to them or responding to them, one is led to believe that you would rather deal in conspiracy theory rather than facts. I noted that you had misrepresented, okay, lied, about previous deaths caused by tank shells used in Gaza. Other bloggers had equally cogent remarks. Dion, you are not engaged in reporting now but ideological campaigning.

[Edie]

I would just say watch your ass Dion the next time you're in the Gaza Strip. The IDF appears to be able to kill without accountability there, whether the victim is Palestinian, British or American.

Clip of killing of British journalist James Miller by the IDF in 2003:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DIOaCUhFk8

That is just a short clip from the HBO documentary 'Death in Gaza'. I STRONGLY recommend everyone interested go to YouTube and search 'Death in Gaza' to see the whole documentary.

Although a well-orchestrated campaign to smear the work of Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall have gone on since their deaths in 2003, its undisputable that both were unarmed civilians working with the local population when they were killed by the IDF as well.

The following video clip talks about the sniper shot that killed Tom Hurndall and gives alittle more information on the killing of James Miller.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSbof_ubSi4

Please don't stop reporting from Gaza Dion because the world needs to read about what's going on there. Just be very, very careful. The IDF has become too accustomed with getting away with murder.

[lirun]

its not like images of gaza dont flood the world.. its not like "killing" reporters will stop the media..

we make mistakes and in war zones mistakes often kill..

irrespective i find his death tragic - but i think he probably accepted this risk when he dove head first into the ravenous lions' den.. which does not dimish the sadness of this event at all.. on the contrary.. shows how important his sacrifice was..

[Nelson]

This is just one more reminder that Israel has chosen to forget the past and create as our esteemed former President Jimmy Carter put it, an apartheid for the citizens of Gaza and the West Bank.
One must be ashamed for those who make policy in the Israeli government, because they cannot see the forest for the trees.
I for one will not and cannot support a government that makes it policy to murder and separate those who are different, based upon some notion of religion or ethnicity. To me, at this point, Zionism, is nothing more than a reason to kill those opposed to the idea of an Israeli state.
For the conflict to end there must be an end to the bloodshed and violence that have occurred for the past 60 years. It will take courageous men and women, to forgo the thought of revenge and retribution, much as in Northern Ireland, to put a stop to this madness that now engulfs the region of the Holy Land.
I for one will stand by those who for one or another reason, choose the side of peace and non-violence such as the men and women who broke the Israeli blockade of Gaza this past week.

[Gary Rosen]

"I for one will not and cannot support a government that makes it policy to murder and separate those who are different, based upon some notion of religion or ethnicity."

Then you better sell your car and start bicycling to work, pal.

[Dion Nissenbaum]

Yisrael:
The point of journalism is to deal with facts, not spin or hyperbole.
I think the posts on Fadel's death stick have addressed your specific criticisms.
First-and-foremost: The central question is whether or not Palestinian militants have ever used advanced anti-tank weapons in Gaza capable of causing damage to the tank from more than a mile away.
Despite repeated requests, the IDF has provided us with NO evidence to back up this claim.
It has also been shown that the tank took time to get an OK from officers to fire and that Fadel had been filming for four minutes or so when they fired, which raises questions about how much they feared for their lives. (They had time to observe the Reuters crew and determine that its intentions were not hostile.)