Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

I wrote earlier about the death of Fadel Shana, the Gaza Reuters cameraman, whose spine was severed by metal flechette darts fired by an Israeli tank, which also killed five other civilians in the same incident. Human Rights Watch has denounced the attack:

New York-based Human Rights Watch has said it has evidence suggesting that the tank fired “recklessly or deliberately” at the Reuters news crew.

When I earlier wrote about this I was under the mistaken impression that the cameraman was the only person killed. But two others died with him and two others died subsequently–all from the same single shell. This clearly indicates how savage, destructive and heinous the flechette weapon is. It is a tank version of a cluster bomb which explodes in the air above the target and sprays sharp metal darts indiscriminately throughout the vicinity.

The tank attack took place shortly after a Hamas ambush which resulted in three IDF soldiers being killed. Could we surmise that the tank was outfitted with such weaponry and the tank crew eager to fire in order to avenge the deaths of their comrades–even if the Palestinian target was of no military value? An act of sheer, naked vengeance?

One of my readers has attempted to argue that one of the victims was armed as an attempt to explain the tank’s firing. I haven’t even heard the IDF claim this and one would think it would be eager to do so if there was any evidence at all to support it (hell, they’re not even above lying in these types of circumstances so I truly doubt if that charge can be supported). Others have argued that the tank crew might’ve confused the cameraman’s camera for an RPG launcher. But there were at least seven, and probably more civilians standing at the scene of this incident. Can anyone credibly argue that Hamas militants gather in groups this large in the open air when they fire an RPG?

Fadel Shana’s flak jacket (Said Khatib/Reuters)

I think it’s important also to document how one dies when hit by such a shell:

Shana’s body armour, which bore a blue-on-white “PRESS” marking, was ripped off by the attack, which medical examination showed had thrust several 1.5-inch (38-mm) metal darts through his neck, shredding his flesh and severing his spine.

I seem to spout the same old almost cliches by now about how Arab life is so cheap to the IDF. But it bears repeating until Israel learns the lesson if it ever will. A man wearing a clearly marked flak jacket indicating he was a journalist, and whose vehicle was similarly marked, was blasted to kingdom come by an Israeli tank using ultra-lethal anti-personnel weapons. It’s unfortunately par for the course for this conflict.

The total inadequacy of the Israeli Supreme Court in policing the IDF’s overaggressive tactics is indicated by this passage:

The Israeli army has defended its use of flechettes, noting that the Israeli Supreme Court turned down a petition to ban their use as a danger to civilian bystanders.

Maybe they’d want to reconsider their previous ruling in light of the death toll from this incident and the international opprobrium that will attach to it. Even if a sense of humanity doesn’t move Israel to act properly, sometimes just plain embarrassment will do the trick. Whatever it takes.

Wounded Gazans and jeep in which Reuters cameraman was killed by IAF missile (Mohammed Abed/AFP-Getty)

I’m pretty jaded when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the depths of depravity to which it often sinks. But why, in heaven’s name would the IAF fire a missile at a clearly marked journalist’s jeep, killing him while wounding innocent civilians?

Fadel Shana, 23, a cameraman for Reuters, was killed when a missile struck his clearly marked jeep in the area, Reuters’ Gaza bureau said.

Asked about the many civilian casualties, Maj. Avital Leibovich, an Israeli Army spokeswoman, said the military had struck an armed group. “It could be that civilians were nearby; it would not be the first time,” she said.

Major Leibovich said that if a cameraman had been killed, “we apologize for that.”

“It was not intentional,” she said, adding that journalists took a risk by operating in fighting zones.

In the accompanying picture you see the cameraman’s vehicle clearly marked (”TV”) and the wounded civilians. Where is the “armed group” that the IDF struck? I realize the spokesperson wasn’t there and is probably talking out of her ass, but this is so clearly mendacious as to be almost laughable (in a very dark sort of way).  [UPDATE: Reuters makes clear that he was killed by a tank shell and not a missile, which changes the complexion of some of the things I wrote above.  It is more difficult to tell from inside a tank what you're shooting at.]

Why would Israel want to kill journalists? Clearly, they would prefer no journalists cover Gaza as they’ve prevented their own Israeli journalists from doing so as Gideon Levy often laments in Haaretz. But killing them? Why are the lives of journalists as cheap as the lives of Palestinian civilians to the IDF? I realize I’m asking a rhetorical question. But I’d still like to know the answer.

The IDF lost three of its own in a firefight with Hamas militants yesterday, one of the largest losses of Israeli life I can remember in Gaza. The army must be seething. I guess it’s easier to kill an unarmed TV cameraman than it is to find and liquidate the gunmen who killed those Israeli boys. But isn’t taking it out on the media going a bit far?

In a related matter, Haaretz reports that one of the three IDF soldiers who died, a Bedouin, is slated to have the home he just built for his new bride demolished since Israel refuses to provide building permits for Bedouin. Let’s add insult to injury why don’t we? He can die for his country. He just can’t live in his own home.