Palestine Hotel

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The Palestine Hotel, often referred to simply as The Palestine, is an 18-story hotel in Baghdad, Iraq located on Firdos Square, across from the Sheraton Ishtar. It has long been favored by journalists and media personnel.

The hotel was built in 1982 by the French hotelier Le Méridien as the Palestine Meridien Hotel. UN-imposed sanctions following the Gulf War led Le Méridien to dissociate itself from the hotel, which subsequently fell under local ownership and was renamed the Palestine Hotel. Starting with the 1991 Gulf War and continuing through the 2003 invasion of Iraq, this was one of several hotels Western and other foreign media used to cover situations that developed in Iraq.

A controversial incident occurred during the 2003 invasion of Baghdad. On April 8, 2003, an American tank fired a shell on the hotel, killing two journalists, Reuters cameraman Taras Protsyuk and wounded three. José Couso of Telecinco Spanish television who was on the 14th floor also died.

On May 27, 2003, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) published a report of their investigation into the tank shelling of the Palestine Hotel on April 8, 2003.

After interviewing "about a dozen reporters who were at the scene, including two embedded journalists who monitored the military radio traffic before and after the shelling occurred" the CPJ determined that the facts suggest that the "attack on the journalists, while not deliberate, was avoidable". The CPJ determined that the tank thought it was firing upon an Iraqi forward artillery observer when it hit the hotel. The report went on to say "CPJ has learned that Pentagon officials, as well as commanders on the ground in Baghdad, knew that the Palestine Hotel was full of international journalists and were intent on not hitting it." [1]

A Spanish judge has indicted three US soldiers in the killings: Sergeant Shawn Gibson, Captain Philip Wolford and Lieutenant Colonel Philip DeCamp. The three men were charged with homicide and committing a crime against the international community. Former military intelligence officer, Army Sargent Adrienne Kinne (Ret.) has revealed (Democracy Now - May 13th, 2008) that she saw secret US military documents that listed the Hotel Palestine as a potential target.

Being a soft, highly visible target, the hotel periodically comes under attack by the Iraqi insurgency. The Palestine is not located in the fortified Green Zone,so it is susceptible to mortar and rocket fire. On October 24, 2005, a cement mixer truck bomb detonated beside the hotel after breaching the defensive wall. The blast destroyed the lobby, and the hotel houses few journalists today.