Thomas Wictor

Not real journalists. And there was no deliberate targeting either. Someone sent me a link to Journalists Under Fire, a short film by an organization with the Orwellian name of The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms. The movie is nothing but lies, from beginning to end. You made your bed, Palestinian terrorists and supporters. Why all the whining? Disguising combatants as journalists will result in you and real journalists getting killed. It’s entirely your own fault.

First, the blubbering, cheesy, utterly dishonest movie.

I’ll go through just some of it.

This is computer-graphic imagery (CGI).

Fireballs don’t have red outlines around them.

This is also CGI.

The red arrow shows a black tower of smoke: No Israeli munitions produce black smoke. And the green arrow marks a woman hanging out her wash. She doesn’t react to the “explosion.” Either she’s deaf or so depressed that she prefers to be blown up.

In this screen grab, why are people covering their ears and running before the explosion?

Because they were warned. And with good reason: There’s a secondary explosion from the building.

It’s the darker-orange fireball. The Israelis hit an arms cache, but they told the residents to evacuate first.

This is supposed to be the strike on the Al Jawhara Tower in Gaza City, where several terrorist-associated media outlets have their offices.

In reality, the attack was carried out at 4:00 a.m. I’m guessing that the daylight shot was from 2008 or 2012.

The Watania Media Agency filmed the 2014 strike from the inside of the building.

One person was injured, and the damage to the building was minimal because small air-to-surface missiles were used, as you can hear at 0:16. The Israelis obviously warned the residents, which is why they ran down the stairs before the one explosion you hear.

Here’s what Journalists Under Fire doesn’t tell you.

Half of names of Gaza Journalist Casualties are Terror Operatives or Members of Hamas Media

Almost half the names that appear on a Palestinian list of journalists killed during last summer’s conflict with Israel actually belong to Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives and members of Hamas media outlets who were involved in Gazan terrorist organizations, a new report has found.

The Tel Aviv-based Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center said it conducted an in-depth study of the list of names, which was published by the Hamas-run Gaza Information Office in Gaza a week after hostilities ended in August 2014. The list also was circulated by the Palestinian Journalists’ Union, which, according to the center, is controlled by Hamas in Gaza.

“The study, not yet complete, found that eight out of the 17 names were operatives who belonged to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, or who worked in Hamas media outlets,” the report, published Thursday, stated.

At least six were actual combatants. The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center has said that it prefers to err to the detriment of Israel; their list of the seventeen names of journalists killed in Gaza—Appendix 1—includes that of Ahmed Abdallah Muhammed Shehab.

For some reason Meir Amit doesn’t categorize him as a terrorist. I don’t know what else you’d call him.

Allegation Concerning an Aerial Strike on a Vehicle Marked ‘TV’ in Gaza City (9 July 2023) [published in a press release dated September 10^th, 2014] –

The MAG [Military Advocate General] Corps received reports, as well as correspondence from NGOs, alleging that an aerial strike was carried out in the Rimael neighborhood of Gaza City on 9 July 2014, against a vehicle marked ‘TV’, and which resulted in the death of one person alleged to be a journalist (Ahmed Abdullah Mahmoud Shahab) and in the injury of eight additional persons also alleged to be journalists. Subsequently, and in accordance with the MAG’s investigation policy, the incident was referred to the FFAM.

According to the factual findings and materials collated by the FFAM and presented to the MAG, the strike was carried out against a vehicle, which intelligence information and direct evidence (specifically, real-time aerial surveillance) indicated was being used to transport weaponry intended to be used against IDF forces or the Israeli civilian population that same day, and whose passengers were involved in the hostilities. It appears that the vehicle was marked ‘TV’ in order to mask the military use made of the vehicle to transport weaponry…

[N]o supporting evidence was found indicating harm caused to persons other than Shahab.

Shehab was transporting weapons in a vehicle marked “TV.” He was a terrorist. That means nine out of seventeen “journalists” killed were terrorists.

Two of the seventeen were killed when Hamas police were said to be defusing Israeli unexploded ordnance (UXO). These are the relevant screen grabs from Journalists Under Fire.

Here are Israeli 155mm artillery shells.

See the stenciling? What are the odds that every single shell shown in the above screen grabs would be lying on the ground in such a way that no stenciling was visible? Also, every one of those shells has had the fuse removed. It’s not in danger of exploding

As for the smaller munitions, those are 81mm mortar smoke rounds. The pale-green color identifies them. These rounds burst open, but they don’t spray lethal metal fragments in all directions. Like the artillery shells, they’ve been defused.

The screen grabs from Journalists Under Fire show either terrorist weapons, munitions from a different conflict, or non-explosive munitions. Personally, I don’t believe that Hamas bomb-disposal chief Hazem Abu Murad was killed while trying to disarm Israeli UXO. There’s no photographic or video evidence, and he also made the ludicrous claim that Israel had dropped 20,000 tons of explosives on Gaza. The actual figure is less than 1000 tons. Since Murad lied about the number of bombs he was defusing, I see no reason to accept the story that he was killed working on Israeli UXO. It’s much more likely that a terrorist explosive was responsible.

Therefore, out of the seventeen “journalists” killed in Gaza, nine were terrorists and two died as a result of a Hamas accident. That leaves six. Of those six, Rami Rayan, Sameh al-Aryan, and Mohammed al-Deyri were killed by a liquid-fuel tank from an exploding Hamas rocket. The Meir Amit Center says that they died “photographing Gazans stocking up on food in the market in Shejaiya.”

No. The market was closed.

Now we’re down to the last three journalists killed in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge. The Meir Amit Center says that one was a social-media activist, not a journalist; and the last two died in circumstances not related to media coverage. According to the Palestinians, one was killed while accompanying his daughter to the hospital on July 29, 2014, and the other was killed when his apartment was bombed on the night of July 30, 2014.

Remember that the Palestinians also said that nine terrorists were journalists.

This is the Israeli version of events for July 29, 2014.

9. On July 29, 2014, IAF [Israeli Air Force] aircraft attacked more than 190 terrorist targets. On the night of July 29, 2014, IAF aircraft attacked 80 terrorist targets in the Gaza Strip…

10. The IAF attacked the location from which mortar shells were fired at an IDF armored force. In addition, a number of buildings in the northern Gaza Strip used for terrorist purposes and weapons storehouses were attacked (IDF Spokesman, July 30, 2023).

And for July 30, 2014.

On July 30, 2014, IAF aircraft attacked 110 terrorist targets, among them five houses of senior operatives that served as command and control facilities, terrorist squads that fired rockets at IDF forces or placed IEDs, attack tunnels, and a site for the manufacture of weapons (IDF Spokesman, July 30, 2023).

It’s absolutely clear that Israel did not target journalists during Operation Protective Edge. This is another of the blood libels that the world spews without a second thought. Organizations such as the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, and the International Federation of Journalists have become the propaganda arm of Muslim terrorists.

You can’t prosecute people for something they never did, Amer. Besides, you’ve made it impossible for Israel to tell who’s a real journalist and who’s a terrorist.

Am I right, Tyler Hicks?