Media bias: Kassam attack update

The AP headline has changed, there’s a new author, the boilerplates remain, and the lede is different, but the spin remains the same:

Rocket Wounds Dozens of Israeli Troops
Sep 11, 7:58 AM (ET)
By YANIV ZOHAR

ZIKIM, Israel (AP) – A Palestinian rocket exploded in an Israeli army base early Tuesday, wounding more than 40 soldiers as they slept in their tents and drawing calls for a major military operation against militants launching rockets from the Gaza Strip.

The injury toll was the highest ever sustained in a single Palestinian rocket attack. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was meeting Tuesday with top military and security officials, and discussions were expected to include possible responses to the attack, Israeli officials said.

The wounded soldiers were all recent recruits undergoing basic training at the army’s Zikim base, just north of the Gaza-Israel border, and were asleep when the rocket hit an empty tent, the army said. Of the more than 40 soldiers in nearby tents who were wounded, 12 remained in serious condition, the army said.

The spin is still “crude, homemade rocket,” even though twelve soldiers are in serious condition many others were moderately wounded. These “crude, homemade” rockets can and have killed, but this is what the AP thinks of those deaths:

Crude homemade rockets land in southern Israel nearly every day. Although the rockets are inaccurate, they have killed 12 people in the past seven years, injured dozens and disrupted daily life in the area.

They have injured hundreds.

Reuters is treating it the same way:

Militants in northern Gaza frequently fire Qassam rockets across the border. Most land harmlessly but since a Palestinian uprising began in 2000, 12 people have been killed in the salvoes.

The AP buried this fourteen paragraphs down:

Another rocket hit an Israeli kibbutz near Gaza later Tuesday morning. Hamas militants also announced they had launched a mortar barrage at Kerem Shalom, a border crossing where humanitarian aid crosses from Israel into Gaza. There were no casualties in either attack.

Note how the fact that Hamas is claiming responsibility for firing mortars into civilian areas in Israel gets almost no notice from the AP. Imagine the placement of the account of Palestinian civilians hurt by rockets. Oh, wait. You don’t have to.

In the same AP story you can find this:

Four Palestinian civilians between ages 5 and 21, members of the same family, were wounded in the initial army response, according to Dr. Muawiya Hassanin of Gaza’s Health Ministry. Two were treated briefly and released, and two girls – ages 7 and 17 – remained hospitalized, Hassanin said. The army would not immediately confirm any civilian injuries.

Please note that you have a named spokesperson, and the ages and genders of the victims, while most facts from Israeli officials are attributed to—“Israel” or “the army.”

The Jerusalem Post puts the information of the mortar attack in the third paragraph:

The rocket strike, which wounded 69 IDF soldiers, was followed by a mortar barrage on the Gaza border. The Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees claimed responsibility for the attacks, and the Islamic Jihad later posted a video on its website purportedly showing the Kassam rocket launch.

So once again, the mainstream media downplays the attacks on Israelis. They barely mention (if it’s mentioned at all) the mortar barrage that followed the kassam attack. Watch for them to move up the “retaliation” by Israel that wounded Palestinian civilians, or give it its own story.