The headline: ‘Israelis shoot Palestinian on way to mosque’
What actually happened?
Palestinian version (presented, of course, first): ‘Israeli troops have shot dead a Palestinian man on his way to a mosque for prayers in the Gaza refugee camp of Rafah, Palestinian witnesses say.’
Israeli version: ‘Military sources said soldiers at an army outpost in a buffer zone separating Rafah from the border with Egypt shot two men approaching them on Wednesday in apparent preparation for an attack. It was not immediately known if they were dead, they said.’
Was he on his way to pray, or to blow up IDF soldiers? Objectively, at this point, we cannot know — there are two versions. Yet Reuters answers that question in the headline, by presenting the (highly disturbing) Palestinian version as fact.
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UPDATE: Reuters now reports these two accounts as two separate incidents altogether. But the question remains, why did an uncorroborated Palestinian claim of a man shot dead on his way to a mosque receive factual status, and a prominent headline?
