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The 2006 Lebanon War photographs controversies (also referred to as "Hizbollywood" or "Hezbollywood") [1] refers to instances of photojournalism from the 2006 Lebanon War that misrepresented scenes of death and destruction in Lebanon caused by Israeli air attacks.
CAMERA, a media watch organization, said that the photographic manipulations were used by the mainstream media in an attempt to sway public opinion and paint Israel as an aggressor, and suggesting that Israel was guilty of targeting civilians. [2]
The Adnan Hajj photographs controversy (also called Reutersgate) involves digitally manipulated photographs taken by Adnan Hajj, a Lebanese freelance photographer based in the Middle East, who had worked for Reuters over a period of more than ten years. He admitted to using Photoshop to add and darken smoke spirals in a photograph of Beirut, in order to make the damage appear worse. [3] Hajj's photographs were presented as part of Reuters' news coverage of the 2006 Lebanon War, but Reuters has admitted that at least two were significantly altered before being published. [4] [5] Reuters stated that Hajj had edited a second photo, cloning a flare on a picture of an Israeli F16 and falsely claiming they were three air-to-ground missiles, and critics raised further questions about Hajj's work. [6]
The first image was discovered on August 5, 2006 when blogger Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs wrote that the first image "shows blatant evidence of manipulation" (Adobe Photoshop clone stamp), [4] [7] Reuters removed all of Hajj's photographs from their site; Hajj claimed to not have intentionally altered the photo but was trying to remove "dust marks". [8] Reuters did not stand by the photographer and admitted that Hajj had altered it, saying "photo editing software was improperly used on this image. A corrected version will immediately follow this advisory. We are sorry for any inconvenience." [9] Head of PR Moira Whittle said: "Reuters takes such matters extremely seriously as it is strictly against company editorial policy to alter pictures." [9]
The second manipulated image was reported by the pseudonymous blogger "Dr. Rusty Shackleford" on his blog "The Jawa Report". [10] [11] Reuters captioned it as showing an Israeli F-16 fighter jet firing ground-attack missiles "during an air strike on Nabatiyeh", but the F-16 was actually deploying one defensive flare, and the original photograph showed only one flare. [12] [13] The photo had been doctored to increase the number of flares falling from the F-16 from one to three, and misidentified them as missiles.
On August 6, Reuters announced it would stop all cooperation with Adnan Hajj. [14] Hajj claimed he had just been trying to remove dust marks, and that he made mistakes due to the bad lighting conditions he was working under. Critics point out that this is impossible, as Hajj's doctored image added an entire plume of smoke, duplicated several buildings, and showed a repeating pattern indicating that one plume of smoke was "cloned" several times. [15]
On August 7, Reuters decided to withdraw all 920 photos by Hajj from sale. [14] [3] On January 18, 2007 Reuters reported that an internal investigation into the Adnan Hajj photomanipulation had led to a top Reuters photo editor being fired. [16] As of May 11, 2008, Reuters had removed all of Hajj's images from its site.[ citation needed ]
A photo of a burning Qur'an amid a pile of rubble, also taken by Hajj, seemed suspicious to Los Angeles Times media critic Tim Rutten, since the building it was in had been destroyed in an Israeli airstrike hours beforehand, and everything else in the photo was already ash. [17] A number of photographs were taken from Lebanon showing various children's toys in the foreground, each surrounded by a pile of rubble. Rutten also wrote about this set, saying that "Reuters might want to check its freelancers' expenses for unexplained Toys R Us purchases." [17]
Similarly, CAMERA questioned the authenticity of seemingly pristine photographs and photo albums lying on the top of the rubble of buildings destroyed by Israeli missiles, asking "how often does one find intact photographs sitting alone and undisturbed on top of the ruins of a building levelled by a missile? But coincidentally or not, photographers from various news organizations have been finding just that in rubble all over Lebanon" ... "with the only common denominator that all purport to depict Israel's destruction of Lebanese civilian life". [2]
Salam Daher, the head of the South Lebanon civil defense organisation, was accused by bloggers and websites of being a Hezbollah member and of using the bodies of children for propaganda purposes in photographs taken at the scene of the 2006 Qana airstrike. [18]
On 8 August, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper reported about a Hezbollah press tour of a bombed-out area in southern Beirut on 23 July 2006, during which Hezbollah operatives asked a group of empty ambulances to switch on their sirens and flashing lights for the benefit of the waiting press photographers, to give the impression that they were responding to casualties. Senior Producer Charlie Moore described the same tour as a "dog-and-pony show". [19]
The same day, Richard Landes and The Wall Street Journal editorial writer James Taranto challenged the validity of a photograph taken by Associated Press worker Lefteris Pitarakis. The picture in question depicted several Lebanese residents who were reportedly killed in an Israeli air strike. Upon close examination of a single still image, Taranto concluded that one man in particular was pretending to be dead. [20]
"Plainly this scene was staged for the benefit of the cameras, though it is important to note we know of no evidence that the photographer was complicit in the staging. It is, however, a clear example of how terrorist groups use journalists to spread their propaganda."
A cursory examination of several other stills in the photographic sequence established that the man first assumed to be feigning his own death was in fact dead. Consequently, both Richard Landes and James Taranto acknowledged they were "mistaken." [20]
After the International Committee of the Red Cross issued a statement saying that "two of its ambulances were struck by [Israeli] munitions, although both vehicles were clearly marked" on 23 July 2006, wounding nine people, [21] the Associated Press reported that "Israeli jets blasted two ambulances with rockets" according to "Ali Deebe, a Red Cross spokesman in Tyre". [22] The Boston Globe quoted Kasim Shaalan as saying "A big fire came toward me, like in a dream" after a "rocket or missile had made a direct hit through the roof". [23]
A controversy developed when "zombie", the pseudonymous owner of the zombietime website, posted a long essay arguing (among other things) that the damage to the ambulance was far too light for a missile strike. [24] Zombie said that the ambulance was rusted out in the photographs, that explosive damage would not have left a rusted-out shell, and that the photos showed no blast damage but instead a perfectly round hole that coincided precisely with where the roof vent would be, and was on other ambulances.
In December 2006, Human Rights Watch released a report on forensic investigations they conducted in Qana. The group concluded that there was no hoax. [25] HRW had "originally reported that the ambulances had been struck by missiles fired from an Israeli airplane, but that conclusion was incorrect". The December 2006 report speculated that the ambulances were hit by a "smaller type of missile", possibly a "SPIKE anti-armor missile" or "the still experimental DIME (dense inert metal explosive) missile." [25] Both missiles have a relatively small blast radius, with DIME being specifically designed to limit collateral damage. [25]
Professor Avi Bell, a reservist in the Israel Defense Forces, criticized the Human Rights Watch report, writing that "the report contains no evidence whatsoever of any other Israeli presence in the area that could have attacked the ambulances. ... The report presents nothing more than its conjecture that Israel possesses and used unspecified new 'limited impact missiles designed to cause low collateral damage' fired from drones. ... Human Rights Watch assumes Israeli guilt without proof, viewing its mission as constructing a scenario, however implausible, in which it might be right." [26]
Photographs submitted to Reuters and Associated Press showed a Lebanese woman mourning in front of destroyed buildings, said to be her home, on two different pictures taken by two photographers, published and captioned two weeks apart, which BBC editors replaced on their website after comments pointing to the inconsistency. [27] Guardian features writer Patrick Barkham offered the following explanation for other reported time-stamp inconsistencies between different news agencies: [28]
[B]loggers in Britain and the US want to prove that the mainstream media are swallowing Hizbullah propaganda. [...] At first, they suggested victims of the Israeli bombings were being carried around and posed for pictures because of different time-stamps on photographs reproduced on news websites. An AP photo was time-stamped 7.21 am, showing a dead girl in an ambulance. Another AP picture by a different photographer, stamped 10.25 am, showed the same girl being loaded on to the ambulance. A third, with the time 10.44 am, showed a rescue worker carrying the girl with no ambulance nearby. Three agencies – AP, AFP and Reuters – denied staging pictures at Qana. And the explanation for the different times was simple. Different news websites, such as Yahoo, put their own time-stamps on photos they receive from feeds; and AP does not distribute photos sequentially but on their news value and how quickly they are sent in.
The New York Times improperly captioned a photo taken in the city of Tyre in its online edition; an injured rescue worker being lifted from the rubble was implied to have been a bombing victim when in fact the worker had slipped and fallen. The newspaper subsequently issued a correction, saying that the photo had appeared in the printed edition with the correct caption. [29]
A set of photos taken by press photographer Bruno Stevens show a Lebanese gunman with a raging fire in the background. One such photo appeared on the cover of the 31 July issue of U.S. News & World Report , with the inside caption, "Hezbollah guerilla poses at the site of an Israeli attack near Beirut". Another one was published in the 31 July issue of Time , with a caption saying the fire came from the "wreckage of a downed Israeli jet." Michelle Malkin and anonymous blogger Allahpundit stated that the fire in the background appeared to be a large pile of burning tires. [30] [31]
On 11 November 2006 Stevens, on the online forum "Lightstalkers", gave his explanation for the discrepancy. [32] He wrote that he had originally given one of the photos the following caption:
He wrote that sometime later, after having done more investigation, he had modified his caption to:
In his post, he wrote that he had had no say in the magazines' captions. He also reaffirmed the validity of his second caption, stating that the fire did not come from a garbage dump and was indeed the result of an Israeli attack; though he considered the site "a very legitimate target for the Israeli Air Force."[ citation needed ]
Hezbollah is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and paramilitary group. Hezbollah's paramilitary wing is the Jihad Council, and its political wing is the Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc party in the Lebanese Parliament. Its armed strength was assessed to be equivalent to that of a medium-sized army in 2016.
The Qana massacre took place on April 18, 1996, near Qana, a village in then Israeli-occupied Southern Lebanon, when the Israeli military fired artillery shells at a United Nations compound, which was sheltering around 800 Lebanese civilians, killing 106 and injuring around 116. Four Fijian United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon soldiers were also seriously injured.
Operation Grapes of Wrath, known in Lebanon as the April Aggression, was a seventeen-day campaign of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) against Hezbollah in 1996 which attempted to end the Iran-backed group's rocket attacks on northern Israeli civilian centres by forcing the group north of the Litani River, out of easy range of these civilian centres. Prior to the operation, Hezbollah had launched 151 rockets from Lebanon into Israel, killing two Israeli civilians and seriously wounding 24 other Israeli civilians.
This is a timeline of events related to the 2006 Lebanon War.
The Israeli–Lebanese conflict, or the South Lebanon conflict, is a long-running conflict involving Israel, Lebanon-based paramilitary groups, and sometimes Syria. The conflict peaked during the Lebanese Civil War. In response to Palestinian attacks from Lebanon, Israel invaded the country in 1978 and again in 1982. After this it occupied southern Lebanon until 2000, while fighting a guerrilla conflict against Shia paramilitaries. After Israel's withdrawal, Hezbollah attacks sparked the 2006 Lebanon War. A new period of conflict began in 2023, leading to the 2024 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
The 2006 Qana airstrike was an airstrike carried out by the Israeli Air Force (IAF) on a three-story building in the small community of al-Khuraybah near the South Lebanese village of Qana on July 30, 2006, during the 2006 Lebanon War. The strike killed 28 civilians, 16 of whom were children. Israel halted airstrikes for 48 hours following the attack, amid increasing calls for a ceasefire in the conflict between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas.
There were many casualties in the 2006 Lebanon War, leading to condemnation of both sides, however the exact distribution of casualties has been disputed. The Lebanese Higher Relief Council (HRC), UNICEF, and various press agencies and news organizations have stated that most of those killed were Lebanese civilians, however the Lebanese government does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in death toll figures. The Israeli government identified 43 Israeli civilians killed by Hezbollah rocket attacks, including four who died of heart attacks during rocket attacks. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) death toll ranges from 118 to 121, depending on the source and whether or not casualties that occurred after the ceasefire are included. The figures for the Hezbollah fighters killed are the most varying, with Hezbollah claiming 250 of its fighters killed, while Israel claimed to have identified 530 dead Hezbollah fighters. The IDF estimates 600–700 dead Hezbollah fighters. Sources can be conflicting.
International reactions to the 2006 Qana airstrike, which saw the greatest loss of civilian life in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, twenty eight deaths with thirteen missing, largely involved the condemnation of Israel by many countries around the globe, bringing about a supposed 48 hours cessation of air operations by the Israeli Air Force. Bombings resumed only a few hours after the start of the cessation of air operations.
The 2006 Lebanon War was a 34-day armed conflict in Lebanon, fought between Hezbollah and Israel. The war started on 12 July 2006, and continued until a United Nations-brokered ceasefire went into effect in the morning on 14 August 2006, though it formally ended on 8 September 2006 when Israel lifted its naval blockade of Lebanon. It marked the third Israeli invasion into Lebanon since 1978.
The Chyah Airstrike was an attack by the Israel Air Force (IAF) on the Shiyyah suburb in the Lebanese capital of Beirut on August 7, 2006, during the 2006 Lebanon War. Two missiles fired from an IDF bomber destroyed three apartment buildings in the suburb. Contemporary news accounts stated that the death toll from the airstrikes rose as recovery efforts continued, with 50 corpses recovered at the time of reportage and 61 anticipated.
The 2006 Ghaziyeh airstrikes also referred to as the 2006 Ghaziyeh massacre were two sequential attacks by the Israel Air Force (IAF) on the city of Ghaziyeh in Lebanon on August 7, and August 8, 2006. The attacks took place during the 2006 Lebanon War. In the first attack on August 7, the IAF bombed a building killing 16 people. In the second attack on August 8, the IAF fired five missiles into three buildings killing a total of 8 to 14 civilians and wounding 33. A total of 26 to 30 civilians died in the attacks.
Salam Daher is a Lebanese civil defense worker who was involved in the aftermath of the Israeli airstrike on Qana on July 30, 2006, where widely published photographs showed him removing dead children from the rubble of a house struck by an Israeli attack.
A number of incidents of attack on civilian and UN convoys have been reported. The Israel Defense Forces has disputed involvement in some cases, and has also alleged that no prior coordination took place before some affected convoys set out. These allegations have in turn been disputed. There have also been reports that fear of aerial attack has prevented drivers from transporting humanitarian aid within Lebanon. One estimate two weeks into the conflict placed the number of Lebanese truck drivers who had died as a result of IDF/IAF air strikes on convoys as "dozens".
This is a timeline of the 2006 Lebanon War during early August.
During the 2006 Lebanon War, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and United Nations officials accused both Hezbollah and Israel of violating international humanitarian law. These have included allegations of intentional attacks on civilian populations or infrastructure, disproportionate or indiscriminate attacks, the use of human shields, and the use of prohibited weapons.
The Jawa Report was a blog and forum about terrorism committed by Islamists.
Layal Najib, also Romanized Nagib, Nejib or Najeeb, was a Lebanese photojournalist for Agence France Press and Al Jaras and is the first journalist killed during the 2006 Lebanon War. She was also among several female journalists who were establishing their reputations as reporters during the war, such as Rima Maktabi and Najwa Qassem. Najib is one of seven journalists to have been killed since the end of civil war in 1990. Najib's death follows behind that of female journalist Atwar Bahjat who was killed while covering the Iraq War.
The Nabatieh Fawka attack occurred on 16 April 1996, when Israeli warplanes bombed an apartment in the village of Nabatieh Fawka, killing nine people, seven of whom were children.
The two photos, both of Israeli military action in Lebanon during the war there last August, were taken by a freelance photographer, Adnan Hajj. Reuters ended its relationship with Hajj following an initial inquiry soon after bloggers questioned whether the photographs had been digitally altered using Photoshop software. All Hajj's images were removed from the Reuters Pictures sales database.
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