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The ABC has upheld a complaint made by the ECAJ that the headline of an ABC online story about Gaza was ‘mis­lead­ing’.  The headline read “Israel attacks targets in Gaza following signing of Golan Heights pro­clam­a­tion”.

The ECAJ stated:

“This is a mis­lead­ing headline for two reasons. Firstly the headline falsely implies that there was some kind of con­nec­tion between the US “pres­id­en­tial pro­clam­a­tion recog­nising Israeli sov­er­eignty over the Golan Heights” and the Israeli Air Force strikes in Gaza.  There is no evidence to support that pro­pos­i­tion. Secondly, the headline fails to reveal that the Israeli air strikes were a response to renewed rocket fire at Israel by armed Palestini­an groups in Gaza, which caused injuries and destruc­tion of property in central Israel the previous day. We under­stand that at least six people in Israel, including two babies, suffered burns and shrapnel injuries, and that one Israeli home was totally destroyed in the attack.  In a tragic and oft-over­looked aspect of such acts of war, four pet dogs also died from the impact of the rocket.

The firing of rockets inten­tion­ally at civilian pop­u­la­tions is a war crime. Not only is it designed to terrorise and cause maximum loss of civilian life in Israel, the rockets are often delib­er­ately fired by Palestini­an ter­ror­ists from densely populated civilian areas in Gaza, to provide cover from Israeli return fire. This also is a war crime that endangers the very people Palestini­an militants claim to be pro­tect­ing,  and turns civilian infra­struc­ture into legit­im­ate military targets.

It appears that these rocket attacks are timed to distract inter­na­tion­al attention from the growing popular uprising by Palestini­ans against Hamas’s tyr­an­nic­al rule in Gaza, which is being brutally repressed by Palestini­an security forces using methods including live fire and torture. This too has for the most part escaped the focus of inter­na­tion­al media and activists who claim to champion Palestini­an human rights.”

The reply stated: “ABC News agrees that the headline erro­neously linked two separate events, and it was corrected shortly after receiving your complaint to ‘Israel targets Gaza following rocket attack, Golan Heights pro­clam­a­tion signed”.

Contact
Peter Wertheim AM | co-CEO
ph: 02 8353 8500 | m: 0408 160 904 | fax 02 9361 5888
e: [email protected] | www.ecaj.org.au