ICRC Removes High-Res Ambulance Photo
The International Committee of the Red Cross seems to have removed the high resolution image of ambulance 782 (supposedly struck by an Israeli missile) from their web site: Conflict in the Middle East: selection of photos.
Is someone getting a little too close to the truth?
Here is the high-resolution photograph that no longer exists on their site: Ambulance 782.
UPDATE at 8/28/06 9:03:26 am:
Google’s cached version of the page shows the caption and broken image link where the photo was removed: Conflict in the Middle East: selection of photos.
Notice that all the other image thumbnails still appear; these images are loaded from the ICRC web site, not from Google’s cache. Only the high-res image of Ambulance 782 has actually been deleted.
A screenshot:
UPDATE at 8/28/06 9:39:36 am:
Several readers have suggested that the ICRC may have removed the image because of bandwidth drain, after links to the image appeared at zombietime and other sites. But please note that the International Committee of the Red Cross is a gigantic multinational organization, whose web site is critical to their operation in many ways and must stay online even during large emergencies. It’s extremely unlikely that the bandwidth drain from a link at zombietime (even at its busiest) would prompt them to remove the photo.
However, you can be quite sure that ICRC officials are very aware of the controversy about this ambulance.
Also note that there are hundreds, possibly thousands, of high resolution images at their site. They sell them, in fact.
UPDATE at 8/28/06 9:41:47 am:
More ambulance chicanery at Power Line: Reuters Alleges Israeli Air Strike.
This incident was discussed at length in this LGF thread as well: Reuters Urges Investigation of Airstrike.
UPDATE at 8/28/06 12:19:20 pm:
Please note that the high resolution image linked above also includes the camera’s EXIF data from when the photograph was taken, with the type of camera and the exact time and date the picture was taken. Here’s a screenshot of the photo data, from Adobe Bridge:
