An Israel Defense Force officer and a sergeant were suspended from duty Thursday pending an army investigation of a complaint from a television camera crew that they were fired upon by a soldier while filming a video documentary near the Gaza Strip demarcation line.
According to accounts of the incident, the crew, making a documentary on the moshav movement for broadcast in the U.S., was halted near the Erez military checkpoint at the edge of the Gaza Strip and ordered by a soldier to cease its activity.
When they explained they were filming civilian traffic inside Israel, the soldier reportedly fired into the air and ordered them to remain where they were. The crew asked to talk to a senior officer. When one member of the crew entered his car to move his camera equipment out of the bright sunlight, the soldier fired several shots at the rear wheels of the vehicle, causing damage, according to the complaint. Local police from nearby Ashkelon intervened.
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