Reporters Without Borders today took advantage of the visit to France of Israeli deputy defence minister Ze'ev Boim (picture) to demand an Israeli military police investigation into the circumstances of the death of British documentary filmmaker James Miller on 2 May in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip.
"There are never any proper investigations when journalists are killed by the Israeli army," Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert Ménard complained. In Miller's case, the army command has prepared a report that will be used by the military prosecutor, Menahem Finkelstein, to decide whether or not to order an investigation, which would be carried out by the military police.
"The facts of the case that have been established and the testimonies that have been gathered indicate a serious breach of the rules on opening fire," Ménard said. "Since the Israeli Defence Forces pride themselves on being one of the world's most moral armies, it should be unthinkable that there could be no police investigation into this tragedy." Those responsible for firing the shots at Miller must be punished, he insisted.
The members of Miller's crew and their two Palestinian assistants say the shots were fired by an Israeli soldier. Two videotapes confirm their account that a soldier opened fire from one of the Israeli armoured personnel carriers that were protecting bulldozers demolishing houses on the Egyptian border. The journalists were waving white flags and were wearing bulletproof vests marked "press" in order to identify themselves to the Israeli soldiers.
An autopsy on Miller's body conducted at the Israeli national forensic institute on 8 May established that he was struck head-on by an Israeli-type bullet, thereby supporting the account of Miller's crew.
The fact that he was hit head-on by an Israeli-type bullet contradicts the claim of Col. Ari Levy, the deputy commander in the Gaza Strip, that Miller was hit by a shot from behind, a claim implying that he could have been killed by Palestinian gunfire. The army also suggested that Miller could have been killed in crossfire between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers, or by a ricochet.
Aged 34, married and the father of two children, Miller was killed on his 16th day in the Gaza Strip while making a documentary for Home Box Office on the conflict's impact on Palestinian children and refugee camp dwellers in Rafah. He was the second journalist to be killed by Israeli gunfire since the start of 2003 and the fifth since the start of the second Intifada in September 2000.
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