Israel Attacks Ambulances - those bastards! So say numerous media reports such as
this video and various print media. The story was also reported by
Time Magazine, the
Guardian,
Boston Globe,
The Age,
NBC News,
Austin-American Statesman and, six days later, the
New York Times.
The stories vary a little but the one from AP is typical.
The Sarours had to go to the port by taxi because the Lebanese Red Cross suspended operations outside Tyre after Israeli jets blasted two ambulances with rockets, said Ali Deebe, a Red Cross spokesman in Tyre.
In the incident Sunday, one Red Cross ambulance went south of Tyre to meet an ambulance and transfer the wounded to the hospital.
"When we have wounded outside the city, we always used two ambulances," Deebe said.
The rocket attack on the two vehicles wounded six ambulance workers and three civilians - an 11-year-old boy, an elderly woman and a man, Deebe said.
"One of the rockets hit right in the middle of the big red cross that was painted on top of the ambulance," he said. "This is a clear violation of humanitarian law, of international law. We are neutral and we should not be targeted."
Kassem Shalan, one of the ambulance workers, told AP Television News that nine people were injured. "We were transferring the wounded into our vehicle and something fell and I dropped to the floor," he said.
Amateur video provided by an ambulance worker confirmed Deebe's account of damage to the vehicles, showing one large hole and several smaller ones in the roof of one ambulance and a large hole in the roof of the second. Both were destroyed.
The problem is that it wasn’t true. It was a classic case of information warfare and the patsies of the news media reported it as fact. It was all a big lie. Only
Fox News did not fall for it and reported the the hoax, but well after bloggers had pointed it out.
To get an idea how encompassing was the disinformation campaign you need to read
Zombietime. It is an extensive report on how complete the hoax was.
When you look at the ambulance, supposedly struck by a missile you know something smells wrong. For one thing, there is too little blast damage to the ambulance. There is no evidence of the horrific fire the press reported. Zombietime noticed something else too. The ambulances have a ventilator on their roof exactly where the supposed missile entered the roof of the vehicle. Here is the picture that was splashed across the front pages of the world's press.
Note the rust?
Ummm … simply remarkable how that fresh missile entry into the roof rusted so fast eh?
Lastly, from Zombietime, a overhead pix of undamaged ambulances.
I continue to find it amazing that the “professional journalists” can be so easily duped. It takes bloggers to keep em’ honest.
The problem with all this of course is that the damage has been done by the lie. Few will read this or other blogger reports such as this, like much of what comes out of Hamas, Fatah, and Hezbollah, are well orchestrated media hoaxes.
