Israel must investigate the death of a TV cameraman and three others who were killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza, the New York-based group Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Saturday.
In Gaza City, reporters on Saturday attended a wake for Fadel Shana, the 23-year-old cameraman for the Reuters news agency who was killed on Wednesday. He was the first Gaza journalist to be killed in the territory in the past eight years.
Human Rights Watch said in a statement that its own investigation suggests that an Israeli tank crew fired either recklessly or deliberately at Shana and three others standing near him. At the time, there were battles between Israeli forces and militants, but the cameraman wasn’t close to fighting, it said.
The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said earlier this week it had collected evidence that Shana was killed by a flechette tank shell that spewed tiny darts over a wide radius.
Reuters has released Shana’s final video, which showed a tank on a distant hilltop open fire. About a second later, the picture turns black. Shana was wearing a bulletproof jacket marked with “Press” and his vehicle was marked “TV.”
“Israeli soldiers did not make sure they were aiming at a military target before firing,” said Joe Stork, from Human Rights Watch. “There is evidence suggesting they actually targeted the journalists.”
Israel’s army has said it is looking into Shana’s death.
Rights groups say flechette shells are inappropriate for densely populated areas like the Gaza Strip.
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