Hostilities over the weekend on both sides of the Syrian-Israeli border began early Saturday morning when an Iranian drone entered Israeli airspace and was then shot down by an IDF Apache attack helicopter. On this point – the location of the UAV when it was shot down – there’s been no serious disagreement in mainstream media reports on the incident.
Yet, a report in the Independent by Daniel Khalili-Tari (Russia urges restraint after Israeli air strikes target Iranian forces in Syria, Feb. 11th) managed to get this crucial detail wrong, claiming that the drone was shot down over Syria, despite prior reports at the same publication noting that it was shot down only after it crossed the northern border into Israel.
We alerted the journalist to the error in a tweet shortly after the article was published.
.@dkhalilitari Hi. The Iranian drone was shot down over ISRAEL, not over Syria, as your article at @Independent claims pic.twitter.com/HmPMb3ybZU
— CAMERA UK (formerly UK Media Watch and BBC Watch) (@CAMERAorgUK) February 10, 2018
Soon thereafter, the article was amended and the sentence now makes it clear that Israel “shot down an Iranian drone after it entered Israeli airspace”.
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