recently made known YORK -- Three n...

recently made known YORK -- Three news agencies forward Tuesday rejected accusations that photographs of bodies taken in the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike were staged.

Photographers from the Associated Pres Reuter and Agence France-Presse all sheltered rescue operations Sunday in Qana, where 56 Lebanese were killed.

A British Web site, the EU Referendum blog built an argument that chicanery may have been involved from citing time stamps that went with captions of the photographs.

For example, the Web site draws attention to a photo through AP's Lefteris Pitarakis time stamped 7:21 a.m., showing a dead girl in an ambulance. Another picture, stamped 10:25 a.m. and taken by dint of AP's Mohammed Zaatari, shows the same girl being loaded onto the ambulance. In a third, through AP photographer Nasser Nasser and stamped 10:44 a.m., a retake worker carries the girl with no ambulance nearby.

The AP said information from its photo editors showed the ends were not staged, and the time stamps could be misleading for several reasons, including that they can present to view when pictures are posted, not taken.

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

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