On April 8, the day before Marines arrived at Firdos Square, an Army tank on the Al Jumhuriya Bridge fired a shell at the Palestine Hotel, killing two journalists and injuring three others. Those killings increased pressure on the Pentagon to secure the hotel, so that no further harm would come to journalists there; the next day, Marines were dispatched to the Palestine. Subsequent investigations revealed that although key officers on the ground, including brigade and battalion commanders, knew the Palestine should not be fired on, they did not know the hotel’s precise location, because it wasn’t marked on their maps; the tank’s crew did not know that journalists were in the building they were firing on. Click here to read the investigation from The Los Angeles Times, and click here to read the report from the Committee to Protect Journalists.
