Israeli Minister of Defense Avigdor Lieberman on Tuesday accused a Palestinian journalist killed by the army during protests along the Gaza border of having been a member of the military wing of Hamas.
The claim was immediately rejected by one of Yasser Murtaja’s colleagues, who called the statement “ridiculous.”
Separately the US Department of State said Murtaja’s production company, Ain Media, had recently been granted funding by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), although no technical assistance or equipment had yet been given.
Photo: Reuters
Lieberman told journalists that Murtaja was a “terrorist with a prior association with the military arm of Hamas,” claiming he held a “rank similar to captain.”
He said the journalist had been paid by Hamas since 2011 and had used a drone to collect information on Israeli forces along the border.
He did not produce evidence for the claims and did not say whether Murtaja had flown a drone during the clashes on Friday last week, when he was shot.
Murtaja, a cameraman, was wearing a press vest when he was hit a few hundred meters from the border, witnesses said.
The Israeli Army has not said if he was deliberately targeted or hit by accident.
Murtaja was well known in the Gaza media scene. With Ain Media he worked on documentaries published on al-Jazeera and with the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei (艾未未).
Ain Media cofounder Rushdi Al-Serraj said Lieberman’s statements were “ridiculous comments that are not worth responding to.”
“Yasser has been working for years in the press and making films for the United Nations, China and others,” he said. “They killed a journalist and should confess, it is a crime.”
Hamas said in a statement that it had video evidence that proved Murtaja was wearing a press vest and using a video camera, not a drone, when he was killed, but the statement did not respond to Lieberman’s other allegations regarding Hamas links.
Murtaja’s funeral was attended by Hamas’ leader Ismail Haniya, who regularly attends funerals of those killed in conflict with Israel, even if they are not Hamas members.
Israeli forces have killed 31 Palestinians since March 30 in protests and clashes along the border with Gaza.
Israel has rejected calls from the EU, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and other for an independent investigation into the deaths.
A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said USAID had last month approved US$11,700 in funding for Ain Media under a program that supports private sector development. The grant was for technical assistance and equipment.
Additional reporting by Reuters
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done