Well if all you are used to is your establishment talking heads in narrow lockstep then it might be off putting. It isn’t at all damning for a single outlet to report on something. Especially when working somewhere so dangerous to be.
In reality this is, as others seem to be at pains to point out, a minor addition to the mountian of nightsoil. It wouldn’t make a lot of sense to fabricate such a lightweight appendix if it is likely to undermine reporting on more serious events.
Calling it branding isn’t entirely out of scope with the normal usage of the word either. It just is slightly problematic in that we are now conditioned to expect the very worst of humanity from some of the IDF soldiers so our minds expect hot irons.
At the time maybe, but a lot of smaller details such as this will become much more important later on when the dust settles. So, why not write it up now so that ot can be revisited later on. It’s not as if there’s a limit to the number of acticles they can publish.