One of the main reasons the Israeli/Palestinian conflict has gone on so long, longer than my entire life and nearly as long as the Zandarparents have been alive is that both sides fully understand that the war is being fought in the global public opinion battlefield as well as in Gaza and the West Bank, and always has been. The international press ends up getting drafted in this fight, and it never turns out well for them.
Israel shared intelligence with the US showing how Hamas operated inside the same building with the Associated Press and Al-Jazeera in Gaza, officials in Jerusalem said on Sunday.
Officials in more than one government office confirmed that US President Joe Biden’s phone call to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday was, in part, about the bombing of the building, and that Israel showed Biden and American officials the intelligence behind the action.
“We showed them the smoking gun proving Hamas worked out of that building,” a source close to Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi said. “I understand they found the explanation satisfactory.”
Another senior Israeli official admitted that the fact that the bombing took place two days after a tweet by the IDF misled some foreign media into reporting that ground troops had entered Gaza made the situation more difficult from a public diplomacy perspective.
But in government-to-government diplomacy, Israeli officials felt that the situation was still good.
The US was the only country to inquire about the IDF strike on the building, which the military said housed Hamas military intelligence offices, as well as AP and Al Jazeera, other news outlets, and other offices and apartments.
“From an analysis the Foreign Ministry did [on Sunday], 80% of the 90 countries we spoke to in recent days released official statements supporting Israel’s right to defend itself. They aren’t calling to stop the operation,” the ministry source said.
Ashkenazi also spoke to over 30 foreign ministers around the world.
“We’re still in a positive place when it comes to our legitimacy to act,” the Foreign Ministry source added. “There is very clear support for the Israeli stance that the terrorism crossed a line.”
The IAF struck the 12-story tower in Gaza on Saturday, giving a warning an hour in advance.
“The building housed the offices of civilian media, which the terrorist organization Hamas hides behind and uses as human shields,” the IDF said in a statement. "The terror organization Hamas deliberately places its military assets in the heart of the civilian population in the Gaza Strip. Prior to the attack, the IDF warned the civilians who were in the building and gave them sufficient time to evacuate.”
Even if the intelligence is BS, and using the Associated Press as pawns is the IDF's master stroke to evacuate all the international press out of Gaza "for their own safety", or whether Hamas really was running intel operations from the building, betting that Israel wouldn't touch the place, the point is that the Associate Press, Al Jazeera, and other media outfits in Gaza not only allowed themselves to become the story, but to become part of the conflict itself.
That alone necessitates AP CEO and President Gary Pruitt's resignation, and that of the AP's Gaza staff. Maybe that's not fair, but AP's been in that building for 15 years. Perhaps they should have known, being a news-gathering organization in a war zone. Things aren't fair in war, especially this war.
Either the IDF is terrible or Hamas is terrible (and both being terrible is the most likely outcome) but again, the AP allowed themselves to get pulled into this.
We need better media run by better people.
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