GAZA CITY, Gaza – Human Rights Watch condemned Israel on Saturday for the death of a Reuters cameraman and three others in an Israeli strike in Gaza. The New York-based rights group believes an Israeli tank crew fired either recklessly or deliberately at Fadel Shana and three others standing near him.

Human Rights Watch believes Israeli soldiers failed to make sure they were aiming at a military target before firing. Shana’s final video showed a tank on a distant hilltop open fire. Shana was wearing a bullet proof jacket marked with “Press” at the time and his vehicle was also marked with “TV” signs. His final video turned black immediately after the shots were fired.

The tank fired flechette shells, which rights groups consider inappropriate for densely populated areas like the Gaza Strip. The flechette shell is an anti-personnel weapon generally fired from a tank, which explodes in the air and releases thousands of small metal darts, which disperse in a conical arch of approximately 300 by 90 meters. Use of flechette shell usually results in indiscriminate firing, thereby endangering innocent civilians in violation of international humanitarian law.

Shana was the first Gaza journalist to be killed in the territory in the past eight years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting.

For more information, please see:

Associated Press – Rights group: Israel must investigate cameraman’s death – 20 April 2008

Jerusalem Post – Israel must probe cameraman’s death – 20 April 2008

Human Rights Watch – Investigate death of Gaza civilians – 19 April 2008

AFP – Media Watchdog IPI condemns killing of Reuters cameraman – 19 April 2008