AP: IDF MURDERS CIVILIAN WHO INNOCENTLY WANDERED UP TO HIS ROOF IN THE MIDDLE OF A FIREFIGHT

The IDF is finally beginning to consider doing the minimum to respond to months of rocket fire against Israeli schools and hospitals. There is a brutal firefight going on in the Gaza Strip right now. Israeli soldiers are being engaged by Hamas soldiers and Islamic Jihad terrorists who are armed with weapons that have shockingly - shockingly - slipped into the Strip in the last month or so. A single airstrike took out six Islamic Jihad members - these are not random terrorists firing from the inside of windows. These are organized armed units firing rockets and automatic weapons at armed Israeli units. Except apparently for this innocent civilian. According to the AP, he just happened to wander onto his roof - where snipers hang out - at the time of the firefight. He was then gunned down by heartless Zionists:

Palestinian medical officials said a second civilian, Ibrahim al-Shami, 40, was fatally shot by soldiers when he went out onto the roof of his house and that of a total of 15 people wounded, seven were civilians. The army often carries out raids into Gaza to target militants and to thwart rocket fire toward Israeli towns.

You think he was up there fixing his satellite dish or something? We're even more impressed by the AFP version of events, which fails to mention that this undoubtedly innocent man just happened to be on a rooftop during a firefight. AFP stringer Sakher Abu El Oun gallantly limits himself to merely noting that, you know, those Israelis - they kill civilians. The JPost roundup on this gets a statement from the IDF to the effect that the satellite-dish repairmen was a gunman - believe it or not, journalists are supposed to print denials from official sources, yes? Certainly they always do when Hezbollah or Hamas is like "we didn't do it even though there are pictures that we did it". Wonder how the Israeli clarification slipped through.

[Cross-posted to Mere Rhetoric]