Journalists Come Under Fire at West Bank Hotel

Israeli forces fired for 10 to 15 minutes from tank-mounted machine guns on a hotel where journalists were photographing armor targeting the Al Amari refugee camp early Tuesday.

No one was injured in the shooting, which sprayed the glass-enclosed stairwell and nearby rooms where about 40 journalists were working. An ABC television camera left running on a tripod when the journalists took cover was hit by seven bullets--one directly in the lens.

The army said that the tanks were returning fire from a gunman somewhere on the upper floors of the hotel and that troops were unaware that journalists were working from the building. “It was dark,” a spokesperson said. An investigation was continuing, the army said.

The reporters said there were no gunmen in the four-story New City Inn, where about 40 television and photo journalists covering the army assault on Al Amari were working from the upper floors.

“If there is a gunman, I would not stay in the building for one minute,” said ABC television news producer Nasser Atta, who has 13 years’ experience covering conflicts in the Middle East.

The journalists, working mostly for U.S. and European media outlets, had chosen the hotel about 300 to 400 yards from the camp’s perimeter because it was well situated to observe the army assault without being caught in the cross-fire, Atta said. All the rooms were occupied by journalists except for four rented to a Swedish company, he said.

The journalists recorded the assault on the camp undisturbed for about 40 minutes before two tanks turned and opened fire from machine guns without warning about 3 a.m.

The firing stopped after the journalists contacted the army to inform officials that they were in the hotel, Atta said. The army said it apologized to the journalists for any damage to equipment.

Journalists in the hotel at the time were working for the U.S. networks ABC and CNN, Italy’s Rai Uno, Germany’s ARD, the Qatar-based satellite broadcaster Al Jazeera, Reuters, Agence France-Presse and Associated Press.