The blogosphere has been abuzz about a CNN video (see below) allegedly showing Gaza physicians vainly trying to revive a dying boy, filmed by his brother, Ashraf Mashharawi (who, as it turns out, owns a company that hosts Hamas websites). Sharp-eyed viewers noticed that the doctors were clearly play-acting, and CNN pulled the video with no explanation, though the network left a text story up.
What hasn’t gotten attention is that the broader story told by the photographer to the CNN reporter is seemingly rather obviously
false propaganda. From the video:
Reporter: “Mahmoud and his 14 year old cousin Ahmed were allowed to play on the roof…. Now they are both dead.” Mashharawi: “The Israeli plane targeted them with a small rocket just for them, just for them, and killed both of them.”
So the allegation is that not only did an Israeli plane purposely target two children playing on a roof, but did so with a special, small rocket that it apparently reserves for killing children on roofs without creating any of the obvious signs of serious damage to the building that a missile would cause. Putting aside the issue of Israel targeting civilians, the idea that a plane came to the building with a special small missile just to kill these two boys seems rather implausible, to say the least. [UPDATE: Is it possible that the “plane,” in theory, could have been a drone of the sort used in targeted assassinations? How much damage would a rocket launched from such a drone cause to a roof? OK, I’ll reserve judgment on that, in case it’s as implausible as I initially thought. FURTHER UPDATE: A reader writes: “As an introduction, I am an attack helicopter pilot with somewhere north of 400 combat missions in geographic areas very similar to Gaza. Your thoughts are correct. Events as described didn