TNO’s evaluation of the machine gun fireplace confirmed that the “solely affordable match” was for a 0.50 calibre weapon fired from 1.34 km away – the identical distance because the tank rounds – however the audio recordings weren’t adequate to find out the firing level.
Nevertheless, the very fact the bursts of bullets got here so shortly after the tank rounds, coupled with the evaluation, led TNO to conclude it was “probably” they got here from the identical place. The impartial institute didn’t provide another state of affairs for the origin of the machine gun fireplace.
About 30 seconds after the second tank spherical, there was a burst of some 25 pictures from a machine gun, adopted by bursts of 9 and 12 pictures. Simply over 30 seconds later, there have been three pictures, then a single shot and a metallic ping, which can have been the bullet hitting a low wall close to the digicam, TNO stated.
Reuters photographer Thaier Al-Sudani, 47, cameraman Maher Nazeh, 53, in addition to two journalists from Al Jazeera and one other from AFP have been additionally wounded within the assault.
FULL INQUIRY
A number of of the specialists who reviewed the TNO report on the request of Reuters expressed divergent views about whether or not the tank crew had intentionally focused journalists.
“The TNO report does conclude that it was probably, along with the 2 tank rounds, that machine gun fireplace got here from the identical location, and that provides to, or compounds the, deliberateness with which they appear to have been focused, straight,” stated Jessica Dorsey, an knowledgeable in worldwide humanitarian legislation at Utrecht College.
“And I feel that that, from a authorized perspective, if this ever received to a courtroom, makes much more of a compelling argument that this was certainly a conflict crime,” she stated.
Nevertheless, Nick Kaufman, a British-Israeli lawyer who served within the IDF Navy Advocate Basic’s Corps and has defended high-profile purchasers towards conflict crime costs at worldwide legal tribunals, stated it was nonetheless unclear why the tank had fired on the reporters.
“On the idea of the TNO report alone, it isn’t attainable to conclude that this was intentional focusing on of journalists versus the pursuit of a legit army goal which went awry,” he stated. “One would want to have a full inquiry and perceive the army intelligence which underlay the deployment of the 2 rounds.”
The day after the assault, Israel’s army stated it had visuals of the incident and it was being investigated. No outcomes have been made public.
