Via IsraelMatzav, journalist Paula Slier visited Gaza for the first time since Operation Cast Lead. She came away with a particularly startling admission from fellow reporters who were in the strip during the war:
Colleagues in our sister organisation, Russia Al Yaum, said Hamas fighters had been hiding in the basement of the media building and they couldn't go on air and admit it as otherwise they would have become targets. So, in this respect at least, when the Israeli army justified its attacks on media houses, they were telling the truth when they said fire was coming from them!
This confirms a point I recently argued in defense of Israel's wartime press restrictions. Many journalists were not "neutral observers," but "participants" (sometimes willing participants, sometimes not).
If you haven't seen it already, here's a video of an Al-Arabiya reporter discovering that a rocket was fired from her own media building.
By the way, the Gaza war was the primary reason Reporters Without Borders (better known as RSF) dropped Israel 47 places from last year in its annual Press Freedom Index. Not that the RSF's high-profile ranking would dare to call Hamas onto the carpet for endangering reporters . . .
