Re: Gaza beach deaths/Terrorism
Please, I don't want to sound too rude, but I do understand why Israelis would want to fight the accusation, but what was the answer of my question?
Re: Gaza beach deaths/Terrorism
Captain, I thought I was clear. The Israelis had every reason in the world to believe that their artillery did not cause deaths on the beach. The investigation confirmed that that was the least likely cause.
Now, do we need an investigation into Hamas rocketry practice? Hardly. The fact that you all are still laser focused on blaming the Israelis while blithely ignoring the fact that the Israelis were trying to kill Gaza gunmen who had been lobbing indiscriminant rockets at civilians is really rather astounding. There is a huge moral gulch here that you are apparently unable to even perceive.
Re: Gaza beach deaths/Terrorism
Sorry but I didn't see "Israeli investigation was/not correct".
[quote]
Now, do we need an investigation into Hamas rocketry practice? Hardly. The fact that you all are still laser focused on blaming the Israelis while blithely ignoring the fact that the Israelis were trying to kill Gaza gunmen who had been lobbing indiscriminant rockets at civilians is really rather astounding. There is a huge moral gulch here that you are apparently unable to even perceive.
[/quote]
When Hamas does target civilians, I do join the condemners, I don't condone attacks on civilians, thats why I am suggesting you to stay away from the blame game for a moment and just answer if Israeli investigation was correct or not.
Re: Gaza beach deaths/Terrorism
Was the Israeli investigation correct? How should I know?
Given the fact that the investigator from HRW was welcomed to a 3 hour meeting and he exited reasonably satified, with the exception of timelines, then I think that a worst this is an accident. The HRW had been the loudest and most credible critic of the incident, and his story seemd to change drasticly after a full review of the facts.
Let's face it, Gaza is a war zone on the verge of massive social breakdown. To think that an absolute truth will be known is absurd. What I have experienced time after time is the manipulation of the facts by the Palestinians to score a propaganda victory. This reeks of similar manipulation.
Re: Gaza beach deaths/Terrorism
Israel Engineers Another Cover-Up
Leaving the Truth Buried in Gaza’s Sands
By JONATHAN COOK
If you keep lying long enough and with enough conviction, people start to believe you – or at least doubt the evidence in front of their own eyes. And so it has been with the Israeli army’s account of how seven members of a Palestinian family were killed, and dozens of other Palestinians injured, during shelling close by a beach in Gaza.
This week, according to reports in the Israeli media, even Marc Garlasco, a Pentagon expert on the effects of battlefield weapons hired by Human Rights Watch to investigate the deaths, “conceded” that he could not contradict the findings of the Israeli army’s own inquiry.
Presumably that is because Israel is not letting him or anyone else near their evidence. But Garlasco’s slight change of tune – even if it is not exactly a ringing endorsement – leaves the door ajar just wide enough that the Israeli army will doubtless slip through it to escape being held accountable yet again.
The army has been claiming for more than a week, based on its own evidence, that the lethal explosion was not caused by a stray shell landing on the Gaza beach but most probably by a mine placed there by Palestinian militants to prevent an Israeli naval landing.
The army’s case could be dismissed outright were it not for the racist assumptions that now prevail as Western “thought” about Arabs and Muslims.
To be plausible the army account requires two preposterous assumptions: first, that Palestinian militants are so fanatical that they consider it acceptable to lay a mine secretly in an area frequented by local families; and second, that they are so primitive that their best military minds could not work out the futility of placing a single mine along miles of coastline that could be used for a landing (or are we to assume that there are many more of these mines waiting to explode?).
To support its case, the army has produced two pieces of evidence that apparently make its denials of responsibility “airtight”.
First, it claims that a piece of shrapnel removed by doctors from an injured Palestinian transferred to an Israeli hospital was not from one its shells but more likely from a Palestinian explosive device.
Given that, unlike Israel, the Palestinians do not have any factories manufacturing mines or rockets and are forced instead to make them out of any spare metal parts they can get their hands on – doors, pipes, wrecked cars, fridges – this evidence is meaningless. Palestinian witnesses have already said the beach victims were standing close to taxis when the shell exploded. So if the shrapnel was not from an Israeli shell, it suggests only that the missile also damaged other metal objects – possibly the cars – sending a shard into at least one of the victims.
The army will have a lot of explaining to do if reports on Israeli TV, not usually noted for its independent approach, confirm that another piece of shrapnel found in a victim is from an Israeli shell. So far, of course, the army is denying the report.
The second piece of evidence is supplied by the army, which says one of its many drones that circle overhead spying on Gaza round the clock shows the families calmly still on the beach, and later an ambulance arriving, tens of minutes after the army had finished shelling the area.
The problem with the Israeli evidence is that we have to take the army’s word for it: that the families shown are the ones who were about to be shelled, and that the timings given are accurate.
It also means we have to discount a lot of counter-evidence supplied by Garlasco, journalists, doctors and Palestinian witnesses – and even the Israeli army. The army, for example, has admitted that one of the shells it fired in the area is unaccounted for, a striking admission in itself. The drones apparently were no help in locating this “missing” explosion, even though they were spying on the area.
Garlasco has already determined that the injuries sustained by the beach victims accord with a blast above ground – an Israeli shell – rather than one underground – a Palestinian mine.
The many Palestinian witnesses have all put the time of the blast close to when the shelling occurred, and report that the reason they were queuing for taxis was because of panic sown by the shells they were hearing landing nearby.
Independent journalists have shown that, according to the clocks on the hospital computers that admitted the dead and injured, the timing of the first blood tests were taken soon after the Israeli army shelling – and certainly too soon to accord with the army’s account of when the Palestinian mine supposedly exploded. Doctors have also confirmed that they were called to the nearest hospitals well before 5pm – at about the time, or even before, the army claims the mine went off.
The outrage expressed in some quarters at the failure simply to believe the army’s version might sound more convincing were Israel welcoming an international investigation to adjudicate on the matter. But of course it is not. Just as in spring 2002, following the deaths of many civilians in the Palestinian town of Jenin and the destruction of the heart of the local refugee camp during a prolonged attack by the Israeli army and air force, Israel is rejecting all suggestions of an independent inquiry.
So why not just take Israel’s word for it? Its army is the most moral in the world, after all, and a state of law like Israel would gain nothing from lying in such a bare-faced manner.
The only problem is that Israel and its security forces have been caught out lying repeatedly during this intifada and before it, not just to people on the other side of the world who cannot verify the facts but also to its own courts and public.
Ths week, for example, the Supreme Court ordered the army and Ministry of Defence to pull down several kilometres of the steel and concrete barrier they have erected on Palestinian land in the West Bank after it was proved that the security considerations behind the choice of the wall’s route were entirely bogus. Official documents reveal that the wall was located there to allow for the future expansion of nearly illegal Jewish settlements on yet more Palestinian land. The army and government concocted the fib and then stuck to it for more than two years. Chief Justice Aharaon Barak called their systematic lying “a grave phenomenon”.
And at the start of the intifada, **back in October 2000, the government and police covered up the fact that live ammunition and sniper units trained to deal with terror attacks had been used against unarmed Arab demonstrators inside Israel. **For more than six months the government and security services denied that a single live round had been fired, despite mounting evidence to the contrary that lawyers and journalists like myself had unearthed.
They might have got away with their brazen lies too, had it not been for an unusual series of events that led to the appointment of a state inquiry headed by a Supreme Court judge, Theodor Or, who quickly exposed the truth.
That happened not because of any urge by official bodies to come clean or the inevitable triumph of Israeli justice. It happened for one reason alone: the prime minister of the day, Ehud Barak, feared losing the impending general election to his rival Ariel Sharon and thought he could buy back Arab votes by setting up an inquiry.
The inhabitants of Gaza have no such leverage inside the Israeli legal and political system. They have no friends inside Israel. And now it looks like they have no friends in the international community either.
Jonathan Cook, a writer and journalist living in Nazareth, Israel, is the author of “Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State”, published by Pluto Press. His website is www.jkcook.net](http://www.jkcook.net/)
Re: Gaza beach deaths/Terrorism
THE Israeli Army has admitted to The Times that its official account of the explosion that killed eight Palestinians picnicking on a Gaza beach last week was flawed. The account is also contradicted by a UN radio transmission.
Re: Gaza beach deaths/Terrorism
:cb: Yes, that is an unbiased and independent source.
The Palestinian propaganda machine is in full swing. And, last I heard, the Israeli military does not synchronize watches with the Palestinians.
Keep going boys, cut and paste furiously. But if the chief critic from HRW has the above quotes, then I am satisfied.
Re: Gaza beach deaths/Terrorism
Your alternate bolding of the JP article actually put's things into a better context, especially as what they are claiming about HRW is not necessarily quite the full picture.
The main argument between Klifi and HRW surrounded the timeline of the blast, which the IDF said took between 16:57 and 15:10, at least 10 minutes after artillery fire in the area had stopped. HRW however disputes this claim and basing itself on Palestinian hospital documentation, claims that the explosion actually took place right around the time of the IDF artillery fire.
Lucy Mair - head of the HRW's Jerusalem office - said Klifi's team had conducted a thorough and professional investigation of the incident and made "a good assessment" when ruling out the possibility that an errant IDF shell had killed the seven Palestinians on the Gaza beach.'We differ when it comes to other pieces of information from other sources that don't relate to the military strike such as the timing and the type of injuries," Mair explained. "While they [the IDF] made a very good presentation*, we still think there are enough unanswered questions that have not been examined by Klifi's team…and that is why *we believe there should be an independent investigation."
The UN, Palestine authority and now HRW have asked for an an independent investigation, but I don't think Israel will agree.
Re: Gaza beach deaths/Terrorism
So, a bunch of idiots shoot rockets at Israeli civilains. The Israeilis try to take them out, and there are people injured about the same time. Why not investigate the idiots shooting the rockets? No rockets, no Israeli artillery fire in retaliation. The only unanswered questions that bear investigations are those of conflicting time frames. Big Deal.
Re: Gaza beach deaths/Terrorism
Ask the family members or the girl who was running around the corpses, perhaps crying?
Re: Gaza beach deaths/Terrorism
Where is the uproar on that?
You will have to visit the threads created for that reason, if you see me sympathizing with "insurgents" then you can comeback here and complain, if not then stop bringing in topics which are not directly related.
Re: Gaza beach deaths/Terrorism
Would those be the corpses killed by the Quassam rockets? Are you that Islamo-centric that those are the only bodies you care about?
Tell you what, have Hamas stop the Intifada, accept the Saudi peace inititative as a starting point, enter into discussions and we will have solved something. Big investigations into time frames are simply propaganda points when everyone has somewhat concluded that the probable cause was unexploded ordinance. Who knows what it was, but it was not an artillery shell, and no one quite knows how it got there. It's a war zone.
(And, if you expect civil debate, let's not take a phrase like big deal, and use it in a manner that it was clearly not intended just to screw around on Gupshup. I have been here five years, that was a cheap debate tactic five years ago, and it still is....)
Re: Gaza beach deaths/Terrorism
Of course Israel can never be in the wrong. Yeah I saw pigs fly. 
Re: Gaza beach deaths/Terrorism
Of course Israel can never be in the right. Yeah I saw pigs fly. :halo:
Re: Gaza beach deaths/Terrorism
At last the truth is dawning on you. Stay here and you will learn that there is world out there apart form US and Israel. I thought you would have used your own line rather than copying one from Jahils.
Re: Gaza beach deaths/Terrorism
your line was funny:), so i thought i try some reverse sarcasm
Re: Gaza beach deaths/Terrorism
No, have you NEVER read my responses in threads where Hamas kills innocent civilians? Did you not read my responses where I said that I condemn killing of civilians (irrespective of nation/religion)… I thought you would remember, I am sorta disappointed 
… perhaps you are from those people who justify their wrong from wrongs of others 
Re: Gaza beach deaths/Terrorism
Like this?
Re: Gaza beach deaths/Terrorism
how did that the girl running between corpse justify someone's wrong? try to be a little more clearer next time.
Re: Gaza beach deaths/Terrorism
Wrong!
Israel beach probe ‘not credible’
A US-based human rights group has questioned an Israel army report that exonerated troops of killing eight Palestinian civilians on a Gaza beach. “An investigation that refuses to look at contradictory evidence can hardly be credible,” Human Rights Watch said. Israeli investigators declined to inspect evidence gathered by other sources, saying it may have been faked. The deaths on 9 June drew international condemnation. Militant group Hamas cancelled its informal truce. “The [Israeli army’s] partisan approach highlights the need for an independent, international investigation,” said Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch (HRW).
Conflicting accounts
Israel says it has refuted accusations of its responsibility for the deaths using shrapnel recovered from casualties and its timeline of events. But evidence collected by Human Rights Watch indicated the civilians were killed within the time period of Israeli shelling of the beach, contrary to Israel’s assertions, a statement from the group says. During a meeting with the military investigator, Meir Klifi, Mr Garlasco says he put forward the possibility the blast was caused by the delayed explosion of an Israeli shell fired earlier that day.
The army fired more than 80 155mm shells in the area, Human Rights Watch says, and one of these may have got stuck in the sand waiting to be detonated. Israeli investigators have suggested the blast could have been caused by a mine planted by Palestinian militants to deter Israeli commando raids. The head of the Israeli military panel is reported to have told Mr Garlasco that the Palestinians had “no problem lying” about the incident, so he discounted their evidence. **“If the Israeli allegations of tampered evidence are to be believed, many Palestinians would have to have engaged in a massive and immediate conspiracy to falsify the data,” said Mr Garlasco - a former Pentagon intelligence analyst. “The conspirators - witnesses, victims, medical personnel and bomb disposal staff - would have had to falsify their testimony, amend digital and hand-written records, and dip shrapnel into a victim’s blood,” he said in a Human Rights Watch statement “It beggars belief that such a huge conspiracy could be orchestrated so quickly.” **
The army has not responded to HRW’s statement.