The drone footage shows two people walking down a road in Gaza, when they are suddenly blasted by an Israeli strike, their forms disappearing in the flash of an explosion.
Text appearing over the video, which was released by the Israeli military, described the scene as showing the “elimination of terrorists.” One person is labeled as holding a rocket-propelled grenade.
The person actually held a bicycle, the military acknowledged on Monday in response to questions from The New York Times, saying in a statement that it regretted the mistake in the video. The Israel Defense Forces still defended the strike, asserting that the two people were combatants, without providing its evidence.
“When the video was published, the bicycle carried by one of them was mistakenly marked as a rocket launcher,” the military said in a statement to The New York Times. “The I.D.F. regrets the marking error.”
The acknowledgment came after The Times asked the Israel Defense Forces about a Times analysis of the footage suggesting that one of the people was holding a bicycle instead of a weapon. The mistake had been first identified by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, an advocacy group that focuses on documenting and calling attention to potential human rights violations in Gaza.
The brief video clip, which the military released on March 3, shows two people walking in southern Gaza City, one with the bicycle and the other with what appears to be a white sack of flour. An annotation on the video incorrectly identifies the bicycle as an “RPG” or rocket-propelled grenade launcher. The date of the strike is unknown.
The Times analysis found that the dimensions of the object in the video were consistent with a bicycle and, at one point, the front wheel of the bike can be seen slightly turning. The handlebars of the bike are also visible. Additionally, underneath the bicycle the ground is disturbed as its tires roll forward, an effect that would not have happened had the object been a shoulder-mounted weapon.
Despite the error in identifying the bicycle as a weapon, the I.D.F. stood by its claim that the people targeted were combatants.
“During the several days leading up to the documented strike, armed terrorists used the route shown in the video in order to transfer ammunition and attack I.D.F. forces,” the statement said. “The strike took place after real-time identification of the people as armed terrorists, based on information gathered ahead of the strike.”
The statement said that the decision-making process behind the strike would be referred to military investigators who examine possible cases of misconduct by Israeli forces. Some human rights groups say that the Israeli military lacks the capacity for independent accountability and rarely penalizes soldiers for harming Palestinians. Israeli officials have defended the military’s efforts to limit harm to civilians and have opened investigations into some cases.
Mohammed Qreiqea, a researcher for Euro-Med, told The Times that, according to witnesses he spoke with, the people were returning from collecting aid. One of the people in the strike died, while the other suffered a lung puncture but survived, he said. Their families did not immediately respond to phone calls, and the Israeli military did not describe the condition of the two people targeted.
The strike was conducted on a road just a block away from Salah al-Din street, the main north-south highway in the Gaza Strip.
As of Tuesday evening in Israel, the video with the incorrect annotation remained on the Israeli military’s website and social media accounts.
Aaron Byrd contributed video production.
— Aric Toler, Haley Willis and Neil Collier
