It's amazing how the number of the "martyred" in any given Israeli "attack" tends to swell upon each retelling. For example, here's what the Associated Press reported earlier today:
Palestinian relatives chants slogans after they saw the bodies of six Hamas militants in the morgue of Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2008. Israeli aircraft killed six people in an airstrike on a Hamas police station on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Eyad Baba)
Not to be left out of the latest Jihadi du jour, Reuters was on the scene as well. Their report, however, is slightly different than the AP's telling of the story:
A Palestinian man reacts after hearing that eight Hamas militants were killed in an Israeli airstrike in the southern Gaza Strip February 5, 2008. Israeli forces killed at least eight Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, a day after a suicide bombing in Israel claimed by the Islamist group. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa (GAZA)
All this aside, it is pretty clear (WARNING: Morgue shots) exactly how many Hamas militants were killed in this strike, which makes Reuters' exaggeration of the story somewhat befuddling.
Aha, that's what it is—Reuters is grouping two additional jihadis in their body count, but attaching it to an irrelevant photograph. The people in the picture above (notice that the same man is present in the two main photos presented here) weren't necessarily being "told" that "up to eight" Hamasiacs had been killed, but rather had just gotten out from seeing the six present.
Reuters is still wrong, by the way. Only six were killed in an airstrike. The other two, as the AP correctly points out, were killed in "clashes with troops."
Two huzzahs for that vaunted fact-checking.
Tags: tara todras-whitehill eyad baba ibraheem abu mustafa AP REUTERS #Fact-checking
Comments:
#1 Cletus 06-Feb-2008
nice morgue pics, 2 more additions to my dead scum folder
#2 busywolf 07-Feb-2008
I thought Israel had cut off electricity in Gaza. My bad.
