I found statistics on how many Merkavas took damage during the war:

Colonel Moti Kidor, Commander of the 401 Armored Corps Brigade, however, says that “those who ask these questions simply don’t understand the field, and unfortunately these include senior IDF officers. When you look at the full picture, one understands that during the war hundreds of antitank missiles were fired, and in total 18 tanks were damaged. Of those, missiles penetrated only five or six. To my sorrow, eight soldiers were killed in these incidents.”

Eighteen tanks damaged, eight soldiers killed. I don’t know if this also counts the soldiers killed in the tank that tried to retrieve the kidnapped soldiers before the war.

He added: “Like every tank in the past and in the future, the Merkava MK 4 is vulnerable. It’s basically like asking why a chopper fell.
If you strike it, it falls. I don’t think there is any surprise here, and whoever is surprised simply doesn’t understand. It’s true that eight soldiers were killed in tanks, and that every soldier is a world in himself, but in relation to the number of missiles fired at us – it’s not a lot.”

In total dozens of Armored Corps soldiers were hurt and dozens of tanks hit, all from the Merkava MK 2, 3, and 4, some from tanks sent from the war reserves store unit shortly before entering in Lebanon. Among those injured were many reserves.

“Only a small number of tanks were seriously damaged, most of them have already been returned to units after the recovery,” said a senior IDF officer.

Hezbullah, of course, is lying about how many tanks they took out. Now, reading between the lines here, the big question is: Was Hezbullah successful? How many tanks were in the battle zone altogether? That affects the percentages, too.

The news agencies are having a field day over the story that the IDF fired on a car full of Reuters reporters. They go into great detail about how the car was clearly labeled, blahblahblah, press, blahblahblah, and then you read, buried deeply in the AP article, these paragraphs:

The white sport utility vehicle was emblazoned with the Reuters logo and had “TV” and “Press” written on it in English, Arabic and Hebrew.

“This is a cold-blooded crime,” said Mohammed Dawdi, head of the local journalists union.

Capt. Noa Meir, an army spokeswoman, said the vehicle was the only one in the combat area, was driving suspiciously and came near Israeli forces during the nighttime raid.

The only words that matter are the ones in bold. It doesn’t matter how clearly the car was labeled. It was nighttime. And it was a battle zone. IDF troops fired on a car heading towards them in the middle of a battle.

Somehow, that fact keeps getting minimized, and yet, it is the reason the car was hit. The Reuters report:

“This car was not identified by the army as a press vehicle,” she said. “If journalists were hurt, we regret it.”

The missile struck the vehicle after dark. The Reuters armored car was clearly labeled as a media vehicle, with signs on all sides, including the roof.

Right. Nighttime raid, combat zone, soldiers not about to stop and read the sides of the car. And, gee, it’s not so easy to read letters on a vehicle at night. Ever driven next to a commercial vehicle at night? Can you read the letters, no matter how clear the markings, unless you’re right next to them? Yeah, me neither.

Yet another example of the anti-Israel media bias, Israeli Double Standard Time, and a host of other biases.