GAZA (April 16, 2008) – Reuters video photojournalist Fadel Shana, 23, was killed today on his way to cover violence in the Gaza Strip. When the Reuters TV vehicle that he and a soundman were traveling in stopped on a country back road, Shana got out with his camera to start shooting and almost immediately an explosion killed him and two bystanders.
Reuters is reporting that the blast and Shana's death appear to be the result of an Israeli military strike.
Soundman Wafa Abu Mizyed, 25, was wounded by shrapnel and was treated in a Gaza hospital.
Witnesses said that two youths who were passing by at the time died in the same explosion that killed Shana.
Doctors in Gaza said that Shana was killed "by an especially controversial kind of Israeli tank shell," the Jerusalem bureau chief for McClatchy Newspapers reports.
Dion Nissenbaum reported that doctors could tell that Shana was hit with a "flechette shell," one that's fired from a tank and explodes in the air sending thousands of small metal arrows flying. Human rights groups have argued unsuccessfully for years with Israel, asking them not to use flechette shells in Gaza because of the increased danger they pose to innocent bystander citizens.
It was a day of intense fighting and violence in the Gaza Strip, where 16 other Palestinians and three Israeli soldiers were also reported killed in fighting today. The BBC reports that five Palestinian children were among the victims, and that today's death toll is the worst day of fighting since Israeli incursions into the area in March.
The loss of three Israeli soldiers in one day is their highest daily loss in Gaza in three years, BBC says.
Reuters says that Shana, a Palestinian, was covering that violence and apparently had stepped from his vehicle to film Israeli forces who were positioned several hundred meters away from his location on the country road.
Images from Shana's video camera show an Israeli tank that is several hundred meters away from the photographer's position opening fire. Two seconds after the shot is fired, the images go blank – apparently the moment Shana was hit, Reuters says.
An Israeli military spokeswoman, Major Avital Leibovich, said there had been clashes in that area throughout the day after the three Israeli troops had been killed overnight in the same location.
A military official said: "We wish to express sorrow for the death of the Palestinian cameraman ... It should be emphasised that the area in which the cameraman was hurt is an area in which ongoing fighting against armed, extreme and dangerous terrorist organisations occurs on a daily basis. The presence of media, photographers and other uninvolved individuals in areas of warfare is extremely dangerous and poses a threat to their lives."
The editor in chief for Reuters, David Schlesinger, called for a full investigation into Shana's death.
The Reuters vehicle, an unarmed SUV bearing "TV" and "Press" markings, had just come to a stop and Shana got out to start photographing what was going on, witnesses who are local residents said.
The car was blasted apart and was ablaze, and Shana's personal body armor was partially torn away, witness said.
"Our thoughts are with his family," Schlesinger said. "This tragic incident shows the risks journalists take every day to report the news. All governments and organizations have a responsibility to take the utmost care to protect professionals trying to do their jobs."
Shana worked for Reuters in Gaza for more than three years.
In August 2006 he was wounded when an Israeli aircraft fired a missile at his vehicle.
The Reuters bureau chief for Israel and the Palestinian territories, Alastair Macdonald, described Shana as a "gentle soul, happy, extremely bright, and one of the most skilled cameramen in Gaza. He will be greatly missed by all his colleagues."
Today was the last day the historic news agency operated under the name of Reuters. Beginning tomorrow, the news service will operate under it's new name, reflecting its new ownership, Thomson Reuters.
"It is, of course, striking that this tragedy occurred on the last day for Reuters," Schlesinger wrote today to all of the company's journalists. "I can but reflect on our more than a century and a half of bravery and sacrifice in the service of news, and to vow that Reuters news in the new company will forge a new tradition, building on the old, that we can all be incredibly proud of.
This is the first journalist Reuters has lost in Gaza, Sophie Brendel said from London. Reuters has 70 journalists covering the Israeli and Palestinian region, 15 of which are in Gaza.
Reuters reports that hundreds of journalists and well-wishers crowded the hospital where Shana's body was taken today. The video photojournalist was single and popular and had many friends, Reuters says. Shana's family has planned a Thursday funeral.
Journalists have been casualties in the Palestinian territories before. Press freedom groups estimate that up to 10 journalists have been killed since 2000 in the West Bank and Gaza.
In October 2007, an Israeli soldier shot a Reuters photographer in the leg, and in 2003 Reuters video photojournalist Mazen Dana, a Palestinian, was shot dead by a American soldier in Baghdad, Iraq. An additional six Reuters journalists have also been killed covering the war in Iraq.
