On November 26, the IDF killed three Salafi jihadist terrorists in the West Bank. The Times of London reports on claims by an Islamist terror group with links to Al-Qaeda that the three terrorists were members of that group. Referring to the deaths of the three, it reports:
Palestinian officials have denounced Israeli claims about the men’s affiliations. They also condemned the deaths as “extrajudicial killings”, noting that Israeli special forces shot the men in their car without establishing that they were armed. Firearms and improvised explosions were discovered in the car.
Rather than rely on less-than-reliable Palestinian sources, a professional journalist would have also published the details of the incident from the IDF, which were already in the public domain. On the day of the incident, the Jerusalem Post reported:
The Palestinian terror suspects were in a car that had explosives and firearms in it, when they were met by the counterterrorism unit and additional special forces, who were sent to intercept the vehicle, a senior IDF source said.
Israeli forces opened fire at the car’s wheels, and the suspects fired back. Following an exchange of fire, the two suspects were killed, the source said.
A little over an hour after the firefight that killed the two terrorists, security forces engaged a third armed suspect. The terror suspect was shot dead in the exchange. There were no injuries reported among security forces.
Today’s Daily Telegraph also reports on the same story and includes the following:
Two of the men were shot dead when they opened fire at Israeli troops who tried to arrest them after shooting out the tyres of their car, the army said.
Why then did The Times’ journalist parrot Palestinian claims without checking their veracity first?
