The Associated Press is lamenting the loss of its Gaza bureau, which was housed in a high-rise building in Gaza City that was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike on Saturday.
The AP noted that all of its employees and freelancers were able to evacuate the building safely, thanks to the Israeli military calling ahead to warn them of the strike, as it does when targeting civilian buildings. The reason Israel targets these civilian buildings is because Hamas and Palestinian authorities hide intelligence operations, weapons, and other important assets in these buildings, so that it can claim victimhood when they’re destroyed.
That is what is happening now, as the AP and other media outlets, including Qatari-run Al Jazeera TV, have become shields for the terrorist regime.
When Julie Pace decried the loss of the AP building, Yarden Golan, the former chief of staff to Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., told her she “must know better than this.”
“Your colleagues there know exactly who operated from this building, and why they decided to work from there, using AP as human shield. Ignoring it doesn’t serve you,” Golan said.
In its article about the airstrike, the AP reported that the “Israeli military said it targeted the building because it contained assets of Hamas intelligence agencies, which it said were using media offices as ‘human shields.’” The AP added: “It did not provide evidence for the claims.”
This is a tactic strategically used to cast doubt on Israel’s reasoning to imply the AP itself may have been the target of the Israel military. Many others have also shown outrage toward the airstrike, but none have disputed Hamas’ use of the building. As one noted Twitter conservative observed, it looks like the “idea here is that Hamas should be able to use media orgs as shields (the deal those orgs knowingly make with Hamas) without consequences.”
AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt released a statement regarding the airstrike:
We are shocked and horrified that the Israeli military would target and destroy the building housing AP’s bureau and other news organizations in Gaza. They have long known the location of our bureau and knew journalists were there. We received a warning that the building would be hit.
We are seeking information from the Israeli government and are engaged with the U.S. State Department to try to learn more.
This is an incredibly disturbing development. We narrowly avoided a terrible loss of life. A dozen AP journalists and freelancers were inside the building and thankfully we were able to evacuate them in time.
The world will know less about what is happening in Gaza because of what happened today.
The AP is saying through its statement and reporting that either Israel targeted the building for reasons unrelated to Hamas, or that its own reporters and employees were unaware that it shared office space with a terrorist organization. Neither is a good look for a news outlet.
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