Shame on CNN - Murdered Palestinians Not Worthy of Coverage

Today Israel's army shot artillery into a family of Palestinians enjoying a Friday afternoon on the beach. In all seven people were murdered including 3 children. Israel claims it is carrying out an investigation into the incident. What is surprising is not the atrocity itself, which has become a normal affair in Israeli occupied Palestine. What I found surprising is that after I saw it on the BBC website, I went to CNN and could find no mention of it anywhere! CNN claims to be the "best place for news" but it seems it is the best place for filtered biased news instead. This is in contrast to the BBC (not itself exactly a liberal entity) which put it as the lead story on its news homepage. You can find the story on Reuters here. Even Fox News carried the story... As for the BBC... here is their story
BBC News
Palestinians killed on Gaza beach
Seven people, including three children, have been killed by Israeli shells which hit a beach in the northern Gaza Strip, Palestinian officials say.
At least 30 people were wounded in the shelling, they say.

The Israeli military says it has halted all shelling of Gaza and has launched an inquiry into whether ground-based artillery could have been involved.

Four other people were also killed in separate Israeli air strike in northern Gaza on Friday, Palestinians said.

The incidents come a day after senior Palestinian official Jamal Abu Samhadana was killed in an Israeli air strike in Rafah, the southern Gaza.

We know it's not from the air force and not from the navy and we are checking if it was artillery [fire]. We also don't know for certainty if it was Israeli fire
Israeli army spokesman Jacob Dallal

Samhadana - the founder of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) - was buried in Rafah on Friday, with thousands of mourners pledging to avenge his death.

Samhadana was one of Israel's most wanted men in Gaza, and his group has been blamed for a series of missile attacks on Israel.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas condemned the Israeli strikes in Gaza.

"What the Israeli occupation forces are doing in the Gaza Strip constitutes a war of extermination and bloody massacres against our people," Mr Abbas said in a statement carried by the Palestinian official Wafa news agency.

UK Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said London was "deeply concerned by reports of the deaths from Israeli shelling of civilians, including children, on a Gaza beach".

"The killing of innocent civilians is utterly unacceptable and we urge the Israelis to undertake an investigation into this incident," Ms Beckett said.

Devastation
Palestinian officials say the seven people killed on the Gaza Strip beach included two women as well as the three children.

The first television pictures revealed a terrible scene, the BBC's Alan Johnston says.

At least four figures lay unconscious on the ground, possibly dead, our correspondent says.

A little further away, a man was lying on a sand dune, perhaps fatally injured, while a child stood looking on in utter horror, our correspondent says.

He says around the casualties were tables and chairs, and it looks very much as if this was a family enjoying their Friday afternoon off on the beach when disaster struck.

Israeli reaction
An Israeli army spokesman said Chief of Staff Dan Halutz had ordered an immediate stop to all artillery shelling of Gaza while an investigation was carried out into the beach shelling.

The spokesman told the BBC initial findings suggested the shell which killed the people could not have been fired from an Israeli naval vessel or from the air.

He said the army was investigating the possibility that it may have been fired by ground-based artillery.

For many months, the Israelis have been pounding away at open areas such as fields and orchards in an effort to prevent Palestinian militants using them to fire their home-made missile into crudely made missiles into nearby Israeli territory.