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The Guardian
12:04 PM - 19 Nov 12 · Details
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Israeli soldiers wake after sleeping in a deployment area on 19 November 2012 on Israel's border with the Gaza Strip. Photograph: Lior Mizrahi/Getty Images
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The IDF press department is devoting a lot of time to making sure it gets across its reasons for the Shurooq bombing. The tweets continue:
The senior PIJ cadre was operating in a media building. They were't there to be interviewed. They were using reporters as human shields.
We targeted only the 2nd floor, which is where the senior terrorists were. The rest of the building was unharmed. Direct hit confirmed.
Ma'an's live blog says the Israeli army is saying the Islamic Jihad militant Ramez Harb, who was killed in the Shurooq media building today, was "responsible for propaganda".
Haaretz's live blog says the three other Islamic Jihad militants targeted in the building were all injured.
The IDF lists the four militants:
3. Halil Batini, PIJ senior operative, a key figure in org's long-range rocket launching operations, responsible for internal security
IDF spokeswoman Avital Leibovich adds:
IDF spokeswoman Avital Leibovich continues:
Two other militants:Halil Bahathini and Ramez Hareb,both senior members of Islamic Jihad -both in the media building.#PillarOfDefense
Updated
Shurooq media building
The IDF's official Twitter account and that of military spokeswoman Avital Leibovich have put out tweets discussing the attack on the media building in Gaza City:
A direct hit was identified on the target. Four senior members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad were known to have been in the media building.
Shurooq media building
Mark Regev, the Israeli prime minister's spokesman, is suggesting on al-Jazeera that Hamas is using journalists as human shields. Israel does not target journalists, he said.
An al-Aqsa journalist lost a leg in yesterday's strike on the building. Regev seemed to draw a distinction between al-Aqsa journalists and those working for the international media. al-Aqsa is Hamas's official TV station. He also described the building as hosting part of Hamas's "command and control" network.
Russia Today has published video purporting to show the moment of today's strike on the Shurooq building. The video, which was uploaded today, appears to be shot from the back side of the tower. It has not been independently confirmed that the attack depicted is today's strike.
Updated
Shurooq media building
The Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad has confirmed that one of its top leaders was killed in the strike today on the Shurooq media building, writes Tom McCarthy. Locals initially thought the dead man was the owner of a computer store on the third storey of the city centre building, Reuters reported. At least one person was wounded in the attack. Most members of the media evacuated the building after it was first hit yesterday. The Shurooq building housed both local Arab and international media agencies such as al-Arabiya, al-Quds TV, Sky News, France 24 and Russia TV.
Israeli officials have not yet commented specifically on the strike, except to say that buildings associated with Gaza militants are a legitimate target.
Iran
Reuters reports that among the Israeli government's concerns is that "If they go to war against their arch-enemy Iran's nuclear programme, the Islamist Hamas-governed Gaza Strip could serve as a launch pad for the reprisals promised by Tehran". That raises the prospect that part of the motivation of the last week's destruction of missile-launching sites has been to make sure those sites are unable to be used in the event of any conflict with Iran.
