Demolished
The AP isn’t altogether happy about the bombing that demolished an office block almost on their heads.
An Israeli airstrike destroyed a high-rise building in Gaza City that housed offices of The Associated Press and other media outlets on Saturday. All AP employees and freelancers evacuated the building safely.
Al Jazeera was another tenant.
AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt has released the following statement:
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 upper floors were residential, so that’s a lot of people with nowhere to go – if they all got out.
The world will know less about what is happening in Gaza because of what happened today.
Do the Israelis consider this a feature?
Not so much a feature as a goal accomplished. I wonder if they’d have had the courtesy to give an hours notice a year ago when there was less-to-no chance of US reprisals?
They probably would have; little to gain by killing that many journalists when torching the building is quite sufficient.
In any case there’s only very-slightly-less-than-no chance of US reprisals now, so why care?
If you miss it on the 6 O’clock News, you can always catch a replay. It will still be going on in 400 years time, just like the English Civil War of the 1640s, the last embers of which are still aglow in Northern Ireland.
Hamas had its offices in that building, and also some of their security personnel. AP was just a journalistic shield to dupe the MSM. That is why IDF destroyed it.
What do you mean “AP was just a journalistic shield to dupe the MSM”? It was the real AP, along with the real Al Jazeera, as far as I know. I did see a news item (I forget where) that said Hamas deliberately puts itself in the same building as journalists, i.e. uses journalists as human shields – maybe that’s what you meant?
Yes, that’s what I mean Ophelia. Hamas deliberately puts others including journalists in harms way to secure themselves. But of course AP never reported that they were sharing a building with terrorists. Although, they knew that very well. And then the MSM parrots AP widely and spreads the falsehood. No nation issues a one hour warning, and then when they bomb, they demolishe the whole block resulting in hundreds of deaths. But Israelis bring down a terrorist asset without any casualties and without any damage to surrounding properties. But AP does not have the integrity to report that, even though they are at the center of the news. Russian bombers brought down populated hospitals and apartment buildings in Syria with hundreds of casualties. Did AP and the MSM even report that widely? No. But the MSM always selects Israel as the evil nation with evil people deserving condemnation. The corruption and far-left bias of our media is actually the real news here.
There was total damage to the surrounding properties in the tower block though.
Don’t get me wrong, I loathe Hamas, and I do need to learn more about this, but it’s still not ok to target journalists.
“but it’s still not ok to target journalists” — True, but IDF did not target journalists. They targeted terrorist assets and gave everybody ample warning to be safe, and no one was hurt. IDF does not target civilians or journalists. That is what terrorists do. Now if AP and Al Jazeera had some assets in that building, they should ponder why they are sharing a facility with terrorists, as that can be dangerous.