DPA Correct Captions: No Israeli Areas in Gaza

April 28, 2021

Rocket fired from the Gaza Strip towards Israel, April 24, 2021 (Screenshot of video by Dadi Fold, via IDF Twitter)

An apparent typographical or grammatical error in numerous English-language Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) captions last week resulted in a geographic gaffe, putting Israel back into the Gaza Strip. Multiple April 24 captions state: “Palestinian militants fired several rockets at Israeli areas in the Gaza Strip in response to overnight clashes in East Jerusalem.” (Emphasis added.)
Of course, there are no Israeli areas in the Gaza Strip, as Israel removed every last civilian and soldier from the coastal territory in 2005. The editor at the German news agency likely meant: “Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired several rockets at Israel in response to overnight clashes in East Jerusalem.”
A sampling of some of the erroneous captions follows (click on the images to enlarge them):

 

 

In response to communication from CAMERA’s Israel office, DPA commendably corrected all of the captions in question. They now correctly state: “Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired several rockets towards Israel in the recent days, in the worst escalation of the violence between the two sides in a while.”

 

Comments are closed.