The News Minute| August 6, 2014| 10.35 am IST
On Monday morning, the NDTV crew of Sreenivasan Jain, Niha Masih and Sanjay Mandal in Gaza got rare footage of a rocket silo being created under a tent right next to the hotel where the team was staying.
The video shows Sreenivasan Jain explaining how two or three men set up a tent on a vacant plot. More than 24 hours later, the crew captured footage of a rocket being fired, just before the 72-hour ceasefire came into effect.
Israel has always argued that Hamas was firing rockets from civilian areas, and this was the reason behind retaliatory strikes on civilian areas.
The NDTV footage on Gaza has become the toast of the world media.
The NewYork Times says the video was notable because journalists have captured few images of the stealthy guerrilla fighters in recent weeks and because it appeared to show Islamist militants using a residential area to provide cover while they fire at Israel, putting civilians at risk.
Slate.com calls the video pretty extraordinary. The report says, “While there’s abundant footage of the civilian victims and damage caused by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, we’ve seen relatively few images of actual Hamas fighters.”
Huffington Post says, “NDTV reporter Sreenivasan Jain calmly explains from the window of his hotel room how the emergence of a blue tent became the site of suspicious activity, with men running wires within.” Huffington Post also says the footage is remarkable as recently The New York Times photojournalist Tyler Hicks explained in a recent interview about the two weeks he spent in Gaza, he never saw a launching device.
The Blaze.com says, “An Indian journalist appears to have captured the lifecycle of a Hamas rocket on camera, from clandestine construction to launch in a crowded area.”