JERUSALEM, 21 April 2008 — A Palestinian cameraman killed by tank fire in the Gaza Strip along with three other civilians this week may have been deliberately targeted by Israeli forces, Human Rights Watch said yesterday.
The group said its on-site investigation of Wednesday’s death of Fadel Shana, 23, indicated an Israeli tank crew fired “recklessly or deliberately” at the Reuters news agency cameraman and his soundman.
“Israeli soldiers did not make sure they were aiming at a military target before firing, and there is evidence suggesting they actually targeted the journalists,” Joe Stork, HRW’s Middle East director, said in a statement.
According to witnesses and footage taken from Shana’s own camera, there was no military activity by Palestinian fighters at the scene of the attack, the HRW report said. Shana was traveling in a pickup truck with his soundman Wafa Abu Mizyed, who told HRW that they had passed by an Israeli tank on a hilltop and then stopped to film the surrounding area.
Shana, wearing a flak jacket marked “Press” in large letters “set up his camera and the tripod and asked me to push away some children who had gathered around us,” Abu Mizyed told HRW, adding that there was no shooting in the area at the time.
Then he said he heard “a sound like ‘boof’... I looked toward Shana and found him lying on the ground,” he said.
Three civilians were also killed, including two boys on a bicycle. Abu Mizyed, whose hands were injured, said he ran toward the main road looking for help.
Shana’s footage showed an Israeli tank firing a shell just before the camera went black. Other journalists who arrived at the scene shortly after the shelling also said they came under tank fire.
“The Reuters truck was clearly marked ‘TV’ and ‘Press’ and drove by the tank twice, so it’s hard to believe the Israeli tank crew didn’t see the pickup contained only journalists,” Stork said.
Shana was covering clashes that killed 17 other Palestinians and three Israeli soldiers the day he died.
The HRW urged Israel to launch an independent investigation into the killings. The army spokeswoman said a formal inquiry would probably be announced soon.
The rights group also called on Israel to stop using flechette shells, the controversial weapon that reportedly killed Shana.
The shells explode in the air, releasing thousands of metal darts, and are widely condemned by rights groups which say they indiscriminately kill civilians, particularly in Gaza, one of the world’s most densely populated areas.
Dozens of Palestinian journalists marched through Ramallah yesterday to protest the killing of Shana. Carrying pictures of Shana, 23, the protesters called for an independent investigation into his death.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces pressed ahead with deadly airstrikes across Gaza yesterday, a day after Hamas blew up jeeps packed with explosives at a border crossing, wounding 13 soldiers. Overnight air raids killed five Palestinian fighters, all members of Hamas.
An Israeli airstrike yesterday killed one Hamas member and wounded five in the northern Gaza Strip.
The attack, confirmed by the Israeli Army, brings to six the number of Hamas men killed in Israeli airstrikes since fighters from the group drove bomb-laden vehicles into an Israeli border crossing on Saturday.
Refugees Seek End to Gaza Siege
Hundreds of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon staged a sit-in in the southern port city of Sidon yesterday to demand an end to the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Mahmud Zahar, who was Palestinian foreign minister in the sacked Hamas government, addressed the demonstration by phone and said that “the siege will be broken very soon.”
“We will not stop our resistance operations until all of Palestine, from sea to sea, is free,” he said.
