The organisation’s secretary-general, Robert Ménard, welcomed the army’s “competence and goodwill ” in announcing at once that an enquiry would be made into the 19 April death of the journalist, Nazeh Darwazeh, in the centre of Nablus and said a Reporters Without Borders representative would go to Israel next month to see how the investigation was going.

He asked Gen. Mofaz to say meanwhile who was in charge of the case, what progress the enquiry had made so far, what the next steps were (such as taking evidence from witnesses and soldiers and reconstituting the scene of the incident) and when the results of it would be announced.

Darwazeh, who was shot dead while filming clashes between Palestinians and Israeli troops, was the fourth journalist to be killed in the Occupied Territories since the beginning of the second Intifada in September 2000. Witnesses said an Israeli soldier, concealed behind a tank parked in an alleyway, shot him at close range. The army said Palestinian gunmen were in the alley at the time.

Copies of Ménard’s letter to Gen. Mofaz were sent to the US, Russian and Greek embassies in Israel, the United Nations in New York and several human rights organisations.