I’m liveblogging the media war from the HonestReporting headquarters in Jerusalem. Come back to this page throughout the day for the latest developments.
This is Sunday’s liveblog. For Monday’s click Liveblogging Israel’s Media War 11/19/2012.
For the duration of the Gaza conflict, turn to HonestReporting for everything you need to know.
8:02 pm: Times of Israel: Hamas rocket chief Yihya Abiya was killed in an Israeli airstrike assisted martyrdom operation.
Meanwhile, Ismail Haniyeh went into hiding. I guess his speeches about martyrdom-seeking and sacrificing for both Islam and Palestine don’t apply to him. True-believers, do as I say, not as I do.
4:54 pm: Israeli security official to Reuters: To increase the range of their rockets, Palestinians are stripping the explosives:
“Our assessment is that the prestige of setting off alarms deep in Israel, and being perceived as fighting on, is as important to them now as spilling our blood,” said an Israeli official briefed on security cabinet decisions.
The official and two other sources who spoke to Reuters on the matter did not specify how many of the almost 900 rockets and mortars fired since fighting erupted on Wednesday had been deliberately sapped.
4:29 pm: A by-the-numbers look at today’s rocket fire based on Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, YNet, coverage.
70. Rockets fired at Israel.
70. Gaza targets hit by the IAF.
4. Israelis injured by rockets.
5. Iron Dome batteries now deployed in the Tel Aviv area.
15. Rockets fired at Ashdod in a five-minute period.
4:12 pm: Clayton Swisher of Al-Jazeera posted one of the most disgusting tweets I’ve ever seen. Killing Jews is perfectly legal (via Elder of Ziyon).
4:01pm: Banner of Resistance Fail:
Sixty out of the 703 rockets Hamas fired during the four days of Operation Pillar of Defense fell inside the Gaza Strip on Palestinian civilians, PMO Spokesman said on Twitter on Saturday.
Only 27 of the rockets fell on urban areas in Israel.
3:56 pm: Maan News reports Sinai jihadists fired three rockets at Israel.
3:51 pm: My antennae are twitching from foreign reporters parachuting in to cover the conflict. Ethan Bronner (NY Times, who I noted earlier today) and Mitch Potter (Toronto Star) have covered Israel before.
But other names are new to me, including Judith Whelan (Sydney Morning Herald, who I presume is with a visiting delegation), and two Irish Times reporters: (Ruadhan MacCormaic and Mark Hilliard) who I’m unfamiliar with.
By the way, Potter revived the old Gaza Beach libel, writing:
The 2006 war began with the rocketmen of Gaza and a crushing response from Israeli artillery. One of those shells took out a Palestinian family on a beach picnic and Hamas and friends answered with the audacious raid ending in the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
3:31 pm: And Big Media still blames Israel for civilian casualties. Sheesh.
3:08 pm: Food for thought from Leslie Gelb (Newsweek).
Hamas’s leaders have a million excuses about who started shooting whom first, and how, claiming, for example, that radical groups it couldn’t control fired most of the rockets. But a month and a half ago, Hamas claimed all the credit again. Whichever terrorist group actually did the shooting, Hamas had to know full well that if rocket fire against southern Israel continued, the Israelis would not put up with it and would fire back in spades—and that Gazan civilians would be killed. Knowing that puts the responsibility for those deaths on Hamas. It’s hard to escape the thought that some of Hamas’s leaders even revel in displaying Gazan casualties as a way of scoring propaganda points against Israel, at the expense of their own dead.
3:01 pm: Your daily dose of moral equivalence: Financial Times staff-ed (click via Google News) says Hamas bears primary responsibility for the escalation but the Netanyahu government “must also take much blame for stoking resentment among Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank for so long.”
2:56 pm: I’m reading Melanie Phillips: Between a Rock and a Hard Place.
2:52 pm: Thumbs up to CNN for profiling the human cost of rocket fire in Ashkelon. Fred Pleitgen talked to families and the the city’s mayor.
2:38 pm: Sara Sidner, are you free to leave Gaza?
2: 32 pm: Heh. The road to Gaza peace runs through Damscus.
2:14 pm: Kudos to John Lyons and The Australian for using the word terror.
Lyons also takes a closer look at psychological trauma in Sderot. It’s a story that hasn’t gotten much attention in the West:
“I call it the Qassam Generation. There are children who were born into this situation; there are children who don’t know what it’s like to play under the sun without being scared.” . . .
The effects of the attacks are psychological as much as physical. Katz runs Sderot’s mental health centre, which treats about 6000 of the town’s 24,000 people. While one in four residents is being treated, Katz says many have not come forward.
1:55 pm: Saul Singer (Wall St. Journal, click via Google News) says Iran’s the unseen hand directing this Gaza war.
If Jabari was the hand on the trigger, the arm and the head are in Tehran. Jabari’s death could severely handicap Hamas’s capabilities in the way that Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based terror group, still hasn’t fully recovered from Israel’s 2008 killing of its commander, Imad Mughniyeh. And Israel in the past week destroyed most of Hamas’s long-range arsenal, blunting the sword that Iran built to dangle over Israel from the south. But as long as the Tehran regime stays in place, the menace to Israel—whether in the form of proxy terrorism or the threat of nuclear attack—will continue.
1:35 pm: Memo to news services looking for Gaza office space: Find out who else is using the building before you sign a rental contract. This from the NY Times on the media center hit by an airstrike:
Seven journalists were injured in the first attack, around 1:40 a.m., in the Shawa and Hossari Building in downtown Gaza City, which houses two local radio stations — one run by the militant Islamic Jihad — and the offices of the Ma’an Palestinian news agency as well as the German broadcaster ARD.
1:21 pm: Col. Richard Kemp has what to say about the war.
1:13 pm: Worth reading: The Daily Telegraph conveys the kind of monster Ahmed Jabari was.
How Israel Killed Ahmed Jabari, its toughest enemy in Gaza
1:07 pm: Phoebe Greenwood, are you free to leave Gaza?
1:03 pm: Harriet Sherwood, are you free to leave Gaza?
12:58 pm: Is The Guardian’s Comment is Free section fixated on Gaza? You betcha. Today’s section features:
1. A staff-ed:
Israel’s decision to assassinate the Hamas chief of staff Ahmed al-Jabari and launch a full-scale air and sea bombardment against the militants in Gaza can be attributed to a number of factors – of which the need to stop missiles raining down on the south of the country is the least convincing.
2. Jonathan “Violence Solves Nothing” Freedland
3. Simon “War Could Spiral Out of Control” Tisdall
4. Glenn “Obama’s Kill List Policy Compels US Support for Gaza War” Greenwald
5. Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, who tragically lost three daughters during Operation Cast Lead, rounds out the commentary.
12:45 pm: Methinks the Daily Mail loves the smell of napalm in the morning. Apocalypse now? The headline’s too long, so a screengrab of their tweet will suffice.
12:15 pm Fauxtography in action? You be the judge. AFP/Getty Images published images one and two of dolls lying in shards of glass. Were they planted? Similar toy story photos during the Lebanon War prompted discussion among photojournalists. As Ben Curtis wrote at the time:
When you’re covering destruction, you’re always going to focus in on details, rather than general views of destroyed buildings. You see similar pictures during a conflict like Lebanon; you see similar pictures over and over. When you come across an interesting detail in a scene . . . . But I didn’t say in my caption that children were in that apartment when it was bombed, that children were killed. I don’t know that, so I don’t say it. But if you look at my picture without the toy, you don’t know what those buildings are.
11:52 am: A lighter note from The Onion you might’ve missed:
11:42 am: Ugly AFP headline:
11:04 am: Shmuel Rosner‘s daughter spent another night in a Tel Aviv bomb shelter.
I make a living trying to understand and analyze events like the current eruption of violence in Gaza. I make a living explaining why the best hope we have today is to “end yet another cycle of violence with yet another fragile cease-fire.” But I can’t lie to my four children by telling them that such violent skirmishes are outlier events; they’re the norm, and going to the shelter might become the norm for them.
11:01 am: Ronen Bergman (NYT op-ed) worries about the effectiveness of targeted assassinations as a sustained tactic.
If, for the sake of argument, we refer to targeted assassinations as the harshest punishment in a penal “toolbox,” then, as in every penal system in the world, using it too often will not serve well as deterrence. In civil offenses, if you give equal punishment for theft and for murder, a bank robber will be taking the same risk whether or not he kills the security guard, so why not start off by killing him and increasing the probability of a successful robbery?
The result of disproportional punishment is anarchy.
10:49 am: The paper: NY Times. The dateline: Tel Aviv. The byline? Ethan Bronner — who looks at the Hamas weapons stockpile. I’m disappointed his lede starts out saying the conflict began when Israel assassinated Ahmad Jabari. Was the rocket fire leading up to it just chopped liver to Bronner?
10:40 am: Hackers are targeting Israeli web sites with some success. Anonymous is taking credit and cheerleading. If — and it’s a big if — Israel makes good on a threat to sever Gaza’s internet, you can imagine what may hit the fan.
10:20 am: Wyre Davies: Are you free to leave Gaza?
10:13 am: BBC elaborates on the Gaza media center. Moral of the story: When you rent office space, you gotta know who your neighbors are.
Our correspondent said a Hamas television station, al-Quds TV, was based in the media tower block, which had until last year housed the BBC’s Gaza office. It was still being used by Sky News and ITN.
10:10 am: Equating the IDF with Hamas, the BBC wants both kicked off Twitter (via Israel Matzav):
9:56 am: Haaretz and the Times of Israel are live-blogging. The BBC has a live feed.
9:48 am: Journalists injured in Israeli attack.
Israeli war planes have struck two media buildings in Gaza City, injuring at least eight journalists, including one who lost his leg, medical officials say.
The IDF was targeting Hamas media sites.
The Israeli military also appeared to take over the frequencies of the radio stations of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad militant group to broadcast a recorded, Arabic-language warning to the people of Gaza to stay away from Hamas installations and personnel.
I’m sure there’s more to this breaking story that we don’t know yet. A few minutes ago, I noted a DPA report that Hamas wasn’t allowing foreign journos to leave the strip. Harriet Sherwood‘s among the human shields martyrs in waiting.
9:42 am: Nice AP piece on how Iron Dome works.
9:36 am: If you’re wondering about Ambassador Michael Oren supposedly plugging dialogue with Hamas, CNN issued this correction.
An earlier version of this story included a misinterpretation of a statement made by Michael Oren, Israeli ambassador to the United States. CNN misinterpreted what Oren said when he talked about Israel’s willingness to negotiate with its neighbors if they “just stop shooting at us.” Because Gaza, which is run by Hamas, is one of Israel’s neighbors, and because Hamas is the only entity “shooting” at Israel, we thought Oren was indicating a willingness to negotiate with Hamas. Oren, in fact, did not say Israel was willing to negotiate with Hamas.
More background on the correction at Haaretz.
9:30 am: Army vehicle in Golan hit by Syrian small arms fire. Unclear so far whether the fire was deliberate or stray. JPost says there may have been Syrian casualties from the IDF’s return fire.
9:12 am: DPA reports that Hamas ain’t allowing foreign nationals — including 22 journos — from leaving Gaza. If their intention is to make them leave Gaza through Egypt, Hamas won’t score points with the media corps. They’re all based in Israel because the American Colony Hotel’s Happy Hour groupthink bar is better stocked.
And if their intention is to have human shields, will subsequent dispatches acknowledge that context? Harriet Sherwood’s tweet is on the ball, but let’s see what her coverage looks like.
9:02 am: I wonder what prompted Rupert Murdoch to tweet this.
19 Comments
No journalist injured in attack on media center in Gaza: See Media Gobbles Up Hamas’ False Reports http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/162188#.UKiSuYaQRLQ
CNN reported this started on Wed with Israeli airstrikes on Gaza and they retsaliated with rocket launches. How can oa organisation like CNN get it so wrong? And can they be corrected
Surprising, suddenly the arab league springs into action, did anyone forget to notify them that 40000 syrians have been (slaughtered or Martyred) killed by their own brothers , so its obvious that arabs be it palestinians or whatever you want to call them don’t value life just use it for propaganda etc.
The BBC World’s reporting today has reached surreal bias. The headline was “Israel’s Gaza violence”
Imagine attacks by V1 and V2 rockets pounding London (late 1944, see V1 and V2 exhibited in the Imperial War Museum) and the RAF bombing German cities while the BBC reports “ Britain’s Germany violence”
Here is how it feels to be at the target end of the 700 rockets launched into Israel from Gaza in 4 days .
Be’er Sheva under Grad attack
http://www.madisdead.blogspot.co.il/2012/11/beer-sheva-under-grad-attack.html
I’m surprised that none of the media or anyone else commenting on recent events has mentioned the Iran connection. I believe that Iran told Hamas to fire missiles at Israel so that Israel and everyone else would get diverted from the real problem, Iran acquiring a nuclear bomb. Iran has since ramped up their nuclear operations and has also provided a very timely diversion for Israel and the world not to focus on Iran’s covert actions. This has to be a blatant diversionary tactic. Why hasn’t anyone caught on yet?
Gaza is acting like the little brother that pesters his big brother until he gets hit, then he runs to mommy, who hollers at the big brother for hitting the poor, defenseless little brother. Saying that Israel must just accept the abuse from Gaza (over 800 rockets fired into Israel between January and October, 2012) is acting like the clueless (or extremely prejudiced) mother who thinks that the smaller child can do no harm. When will the world acknowledge that Hamas is willing to fight until the last Palestinian dies as a martyr, as long as their leaders can live as rich and powerful rulers who cannot be criticized. Hamas puts the death of Israel as a Jewish state as primary objective.
One only has to look at the number of rockets fired from Gaza to realize that Hamas has been able to smuggle all these in from a number of sources. So, where is Egypt when this smuggling has occurred? Today, Sunday, another hundred rockets fired? Peace of and by deterrence is the only way to resolve any issues with countries surrounding Israel. The present campaign has made an impact so far. Now it is time to clean up Gaza of rockets. Where would Gaza be today if Hamas spent as much time building a “Palestinian nation” as it does wanting to eliminate Israel?
“Thumbs up to CNN for profiling the human cost of rocket fire in Ashkelon”: even this report, certainly others, do not even try to assess the Israeli casualties if there were no ealy warning system, shelters, and Iron Dome. These would be over and beyond any Palestinian casualties. But who cares for Israeli lives?
We were watching CNN Tonight at approximately 6:00PM eastern time when this reporter sporting dreadlocks announced clearly that Israel was at fault for this entire problem. He also complained bitterly about the money the US has “given” to Israel, and that Israel converted that money into weapons. He doesn’t mention one word about what the Arabs have done with the money they received. I did not realize just how anti Semitic CNN is.
Les Gilbert
I refer to les gilbert comment about the money the arabs receive , well the officials of the palestinian goverment are lining their own pockets otherwise where did Yasir Arafat end up with half Billion $, Mubarak with 20+billion and so on .every arab ruler has Billions stashed away and they never worked a day in their lives one can go on and on.
I have, over the years, come to realize that I would never receive unbaised, honest reporting from CNN, FOX, or BBC. CNN is not only a one-sided news agency, it has too many times run old footages of events, and reruns of old stories. Wolf Blitzer was a decent reporter when he was in the field many years ago, but has brought journalism to an all time low. Fox News misses “the point” when reporting honestly about Israel. The best coverage, although not in depth, comes from NPR. To keep a positive focus on current issues occurring in Israel, I rely on the many online news agencies from Israel., as well as Honest Reporting. Yes, there are good reporting news agencies. The focus needs to be on them.
FT should be banned from entering IL. NYT should be banned as long as they lie or use double standards. If one reporter lie all the reporters for that newspaper should be expelled until full apology is obtained. IL should err towards protecting the live of their citizen at the expense of freedom of speech for the liars. Antisemites believe that with IL. lie is allowed. NPR tends to give left side opinion and abstains on giving opposite opinions.
There is no more unbiased journalism.
We all have to look at many different sources to get the sense of what is going on rt & lt.
Positive story from CBC News
http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/World/ID/2306097297/
Kudos to the writer who reminds the BBC that blaming Israel for the going after the rocket and mortar launching sites is no different than the Brits and US going after the German V-1 and V-2 rocket launchers…except that Israel has “Iron Dome” that can shoot down many of those rockets, while the US and GB had nothing to stop the V-2 once it was launched. Imagine what the BBC would say if the IRA had been lobbing rockets across the Irish Sea and into London?
Israel should surprise the world by announcing a unilateral ceasefire because of its concern for the civilian population in Gaza. The announcement should also unequivocably state that if there are ever any more rockets fired from Gaza, the Israeli response will be 10 times what it was this week, and that the situation will be viewed as all-out war.
Israel should also seriously consider taking control of the southern edge of Gaza, digging an 80-yards wide and 80-foot deep trench the length of the border and filling it with high density concrete – no more smuggling tunnels!
They can be corrected, by writing them an email with the facts. Try and support what you say with a link to proof of the truth. A picture often speaks a thousand words, so it could be included.
They should have an email address for you to write to, in response to their broadcasts.
The BBC is known for its antisemetic Views just like the home office, the british bombed dresden and didn’t care about civilians casualties (Major) but didn’t want to bomb the railtracks leading to Auschswits as didn’t want to hurt civilians , so you know where the BBC gets it from, British Broadcasting, CNN is not at all better.
When I asked a colleague what he thought of this unrest between Israel and Gaza, his reply was “I hope the Jews get everything they deserve!” Well, there it is: Take Gaza, the West Bank and Transjordan – the Jews deserve it all!
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