Police to investigate Channel 10 cameraman’s shooting

Military Police investigators have been instructed to look into the circumstances surrounding the shooting of a cameraman in the Gaza Strip in January, Israeli media sources reported.

 

Israeli TV, Channel 10 cameraman Majdi al-Arbid was apparently hit by army fire while on the job in the town of Beit Hanoun earlier this year.

Judge Advocate General Avichai Mandelblith gave orders to hold a criminal investigation instead of the military one, Following an inquiry into the incident.

Following the incident, Israeli reporter Shlomi Eldar, who was standing next to Al-Arbid at the time of the shooting, reported that troops saw the crew photographing.

 

“They (the soldiers) saw us photographing, saw the cameras, saw the equipment,” he said. “They saw us without a doubt. The cameraman and I both held cameras and had identification marks,” he added.  Still, at one point the soldiers began firing, Eldar said.

“Without advance warning and without any logical reason they started to fire,” he said. “They just shot him in the legs and stomach.”

The Israeli government is facing a lay suit filed by the family of the British journalist James Miller, who was killed in May 2002 in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.

Military investigation held by the army resulted in claiming that Miller was caught in an exchange of fire.

The family is demanding a criminal investigation, as they have enough evidence that there was no exchange of fire when their son was shot dead by the soldiers.