Sderot Home, Hit in Palestinian Rocket Attack, Erased by Reuters

By: Tamar Sternthal August 25, 2020
In substantive omission in Reuters’ Aug. 21 article “Gaza-Israel violence prompts stepped-up mediation efforts,” correspondents Nidal Al-Mugrabi and Rami Ayyub fail to note that a home in Sderot was hit and severely damaged during the Aug. 21 over-night rocket attacks (ie Thursday night into Friday morning).
Omitting that a home in Sderot was hit, the article states:
 
Buildings and vehicles in the southern Israeli city of Sderot were damaged, police said, and some Gaza commercial buildings and homes near the sites of Israeli air strikes on Hamas facilities were damaged.
 

Damage to the Malka family’s home, Sderot, Aug. 21, 2020 (Sderot Media Center)

If the reported damaging of homes in Gaza was newsworthy, why the damaging of a home in Sderot not mentioned? In the case of Palestinian rockets towards Israel, the Palestinian launchers were not aiming at Israeli army facilities, but at civilian areas.
 
 

A man whose home in the southern city of Sderot suffered serious damage in a rocket attack from Gaza overnight said he believed he and his wife miraculously escaped after warning sirens failed to wake them.

“It’s a miracle [that we’re okay],” Shlomo Malka told Hebrew media outlets. “We did not hear the alert at all, we were awoken by the explosion.” . . .

“It cut the house in two. It hit the roof of the secure room,” he said, referring to the shelter within the house. “Suddenly we heard explosions and smelled smoke. We ran to the police station,” he told the Ynet news site. “It was only after we left [the house] that we saw the destruction.”

Pictures of the home showed the kitchen blown apart, windows smashed and large holes in the walls and roof.

Damage to the Malka family’s home, Sderot, Aug. 21, 2020 (Sderot Media Center)

Both AFP and AP, among other news agencies, published photos of the heavily damaged home.
CAMERA has contacted Reuters to request that editors add in the key information that a home in Sderot was heavily damaged in the Aug. 21 rocket attacks. Stay tuned for an update.

Comments are closed.