Reuters has released a video (see below) showing what appears to be the Israeli tank firing the round that – it’s claimed – killed cameraman Fadel Shana.

The first thing to note is the distance that Shana is from the tank, probably a Merkava 4 with a 105mm gun firing flechette rounds. Flechettes?

Flechettes are razor-sharp 3.75mm darts released from cannisters that explode in mid-air and spray thousands of them in an arc some 300 metres long and 90 metres wide.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) generally fires them in 105mm tank shells. According to Jane’s Defence Weekly, the IDF is using a modified version of US-supplied M494 105mm APERS-T rounds, acquired in the 1970s.

According to the Israeli Supreme Court:

the use of the flechette is restricted to areas [Hebrew. gizra, is closer to “sector”, implying a more closed, delineated area] in which the danger to innocent civilians is not actual, and only against those suspected of activity that endangers IDF soldiers or Israeli citizens.

If my maths is right – big if, and if it was a flechette – that gives an arc with an area of nearly 13,500 square metres (the pitch at Wembley is 7,140). That is a large space for everyone within it to be suspected of activity endangering Israeli soldiers or citizens. Riding a bicycle or filming for Reuters or just being a kid wouldn’t quite seem to do it.

Of course, Hamas regularly sends unguided Katyusha and Qassam rockets into densely populated parts of Israel (today’s listed here) in the hope of killing whoever happens to be underneath when they go off.

We hope, of course, that the IDF is more discriminate in its counter-butchery.

And hope is probably the right word if you are lobbing a couple of Wembley-sized pitch-fulls of death over a couple of kilometres.

Is everyone beneath a terrorist? Using flechettes implies either recklessness with regard to civilian casualties or negligence or well…just not really giving a damn about who happens to be underneath at the time.

It doesn’t exactly guarantee the “surgical” precision which military types (of all nationalities) like to ascribe to their work. Just the usual crime of guilt by virtue of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now press play…