A Palestinian journalist, Issam Abdallah, who was reporting for Reuters on the exchange of fire between the IDF and Hezbollah on Israel’s northern border, was shot dead in mid-October. Immediately, Reuters conducted its own hasty investigation, and accused the IDF of the killing. The IDF did not deny nor confirm it, and said it was investigating the matter; that investigation is ongoing. When the IDF discovers that one of its soldiers is responsible for the death of a civilian, it will admit it, as happened in the case of journalist Shireen Abu Akhleh, a Palestinian-American shot dead outside Jenin. The IDF owns up to its errors, including the deaths of civilians.
More on how this latest story was covered, and what key bit of information was left out, can be found here: “Report on Killing of Journalist in Lebanon Tells Only Half the Story,” HonestReporting, March 11, 2024:
In journalism, every story must answer five fundamental questions known as the 5 W’s: “Who,” “What,” “When,” “Where,” and “Why,” with “How” usually added as number 6. These are the basic pillars that help build a reliable and coherent picture of reality.
Yet Reuters’ impressive investigative report into the killing of the agency’s journalist Issam Abdallah in south Lebanon last October focuses heavily on all these questions except for the “Why.” Thus, it omits crucial context from what is undoubtedly a tragic incident and frames it as a deliberate Israeli action against reporters.
Abdallah was killed while covering cross-border fire near the Israel-Lebanon border on October 13, several days after Lebanese terror group Hezbollah started launching rockets at Israel in solidarity with the deadly Hamas attack that sparked the Israel-Hamas war on October 7.
According to the IDF, which has repeatedly said that it does not deliberately target journalists, the incident has been under review since then.
But Abdallah’s colleagues, led by Reuters bureau chief for Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, Maya Gebeily, didn’t wait for any review. They apparently decided they were knowledgeable enough to collect all relevant forensic evidence from the scene in order to find the culprit.
Indeed, it is legitimate to cast doubt on these journalists’ forensic expertise (particularly if they had only 6-7 minutes to collect material from the site as Gebeily later acknowledged), and on their objectivity as bereaved friends who had just lost their beloved colleague. But it seems like they have made a serious effort….
Reuters’ investigative report from December 2023 covered the organization’s initial findings, and another report revealed its final results last week. In both cases, the conclusion was that Abdallah had been killed by Israeli tank fire….
Nowhere in its report do the Reuters investigators explain that the tank fire may have been trying to hit a Hezbollah target, such as rocket launchers — after all, you don’t ordinarily use a tank to take out a single person, or even several of hem. There very likely was such a Hezbollah target, with Issam Abdallah, unfortunately, standing too close to, or inside, the line of fire.
In Reuters’ investigative report, detailed maps completely omit the terror group’s presence at the border area. They make it look like Israel was firing in a vacuum directly at the group of journalists that included Abdallah — and not, perhaps, towards Hezbollah rocket launchers….
On the map prepared by the Reuters’ investigators, showing the positions of the Israeli tank and of Issam Abdallah, there is no indication that any Hezbollah fighters, weapons, or rocket launchers were in the area. This was a deliberate omission on their part; they don’t want anyone to realize that it was Hezbollah that the Israeli tank was attempting to hit, not Issam Abdallah.
…But words can also mislead, as they do in Reuters’ report on the Dutch organization’s final findings, which mentions Hezbollah only once — in the 8th paragraph, as part of the IDF response. It’s also mentioned only 4 times in the investigative piece….
Hezbollah is mentioned fleetingly, only once in he final findings as part of a reference to the IDF saying that there had been reports of a “terrorist infiltration that day” — but the Reuters’ investigators did not indicate on their map where the Hezbollah operatives must have been waiting with what were most likely rocket launchers. Without that being included on the map, there was no reason for anyone to suspect that Hezbollah fighters were there with their heavy weapons, and that they, not Issam Abdallah, were the true target of the IDF fire. Reuters needs to explain why it left Hezbollah fighters off its map.
Again, it’s important to ask, “why?”
Why was Hezbollah omitted from the maps in Reuters’ investigative report and hardly mentioned in its coverage of the final findings?
Why was so much work invested in telling only half the story?
And why does Reuters seem to have different reporting standards when it comes to Israel?
Please explain, Reuters, just why you think the IDF would use a Merkava tank to take out a single person, or two, or three? And why did you mention Hezbollah only in passing when, in a similar incident in Afghanistan, when one of your photographers was killed by American fire, was the Taliban mentioned 41 times in that report, identified as the true target of the Americans?
Questions, Reuters. Questions. We’ll wait right here for your answers.
Daniel Bielak says
Why do Western elites (U.S. executive administration officials, CIA officials, State Department officials, other U.S. “Deep Sate” officials, E.U. officials, Western U.N. officials, Western “Woke” politicians, Western “Woke” academics, most Western mainstream news media editors and journalists, etc.) libel, vilify, and undermine Israel? Because Western elites are totalitarians who hate the Jewish people.
Articles by Dr. Francisco Gil-White about this phenomenon and more:
https://franciscogilwhite.substack.com/archive?sort=new
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More articles by Dr. Francisco Gil-White about this phenomenon and more:
PLO/Fatah’s Nazi training was CIA-sponsored
http://www.hirhome.com/israel/cia-fatah.htm
Interview with Argument
http://www.hirhome.com/israel/interview_argument.htm
PLO murders US diplomats; US State Department protects…the PLO!
http://www.hirhome.com/israel/state_plo.htm
Understanding the US position (Part 1)
http://www.hirhome.com/israel/hezbollah4.htm
Understanding the US position (Part 2)
http://www.hirhome.com/israel/hezbollah4_2.htm
The CIA protected Adolf Eichmann, architect of the Holocaust
http://www.hirhome.com/israel/eichmann.htm
Antisemitism is everywhere in the mass media – Sometimes it is relatively subtle…
http://www.hirhome.com/israel/subtle.htm
Reply to Mearsheimer & Walt’s “The Israel Lobby”
http://www.hirhome.com/israel/mearsheimer_walt.htm
What is Seeds of Peace? – Does this US Intelligence operation groom young Arab leaders who want peace with Israel, or who wish to destroy Israel?
http://www.hirhome.com/israel/seeds.htm
The modern “Protocols of Zion” – How the mass media now promotes the same lies that caused the death of more than 5 million Jews in WWII
http://www.hirhome.com/israel/mprot1.htm
Is the US an ally of Israel? – A chronological look at the evidence
http://www.hirhome.com/israel/hirally.htm
A skeptical look at the Ford Foundation – Does its Nazi past matter?
http://www.hirhome.com/israel/ford.htm
Collapse of the West – The Next Holocaust and its Consequences
http://www.hirhome.com/colapso/colapso_eng.htm
With the world upside down, is it still possible to stick your head in the sand?
http://www.hirhome.com/israel/left_right1.htm
Why do enemies of democracy attack the Jews?
http://www.hirhome.com/political_grammar09.htm
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About “Self-hating” Jews (who actually love themselves, lack moral integrity, and therefore want to distance themselves from the widely vilified group of Jewish people of the day):
The Psychology of Populations under Chronic Siege, by Dr. Kenneth Levin
https://www.jcpa.org/phas/phas-046-levin.htm
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Reuters being a propaganda outfit, their employees are legitimate military targets. I do hope this continues until all propaganda outfits – be it Reuters, AP, Guardian, BBC, WaPo, NPR, PBS, et al all deem it too dangerous to have reporters in Israel. Just like there were none of them in the Soviet Union during the Cold War