- (Reuters) - Live from Israel: A secret long-range artillery
test broadcast by mistake across the Middle East on an open satellite television
channel.
-
- Israel's Channel 10 television captured an unencrypted
live feed from one weapons-testing control room to another that was bounced
off Israel's Amos communications satellite this week.
-
- The channel broadcast an edited version to viewers on
its main evening news programme on Wednesday that showed technicians watching
the launch and monitoring data-filled computer screens.
-
- At one point, the camera showed two Israeli generals,
including the deputy chief of staff, looking on.
-
- "It was a serious lapse that should not have occurred,"
Yuval Shteinitz, chairman of parliament's foreign affairs and security
committee, told Israel Radio on Thursday.
-
- "Luckily, this mishap...did not involve highly classified
systems or tests," he said about the Israel Aircraft Industries' launch
of what it described in a statement as a long-range artillery shell.
-
- Israel's biggest newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, said the
weapon was designed to hit targets 50 km (30 miles) away.
-
- A Channel 10 technician, conducting what the station
said was a routine scan of the Amos satellite's frequencies, monitored
the feed with a small dish of the type used by home subscribers.
-
- Israeli media reports said the satellite's "footprint"
covers an area stretching from Iran to Libya.
-
- Shteinitz said his committee would investigate the incident.
|
