Israel shelled Palestinians after evacuating them, UN says
Above; the body of a girl who was found in the rubble of her destroyed house following an Israeli air strike on a house in Zeitoun Photograph: Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images
Source.
At least 30 people were killed in the Zeitoun district of Gaza after Israeli troops repeatedly shelled a house to which more than 100 Palestinians had been evacuated by the Israeli military, the UN said today.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said in a report it was "one of the gravest incidents since the beginning of operations" against Hamas militants in Gaza by the Israeli military on 27 December.
OCHA said the incident took place on 4 January, a day after Israel began its ground offensive in Gaza. According to testimonies gathered by the UN, Israeli soldiers evacuated about 110 Palestinians to a single-storey house in Zeitoun, south-east Gaza. The evacuees were instructed to stay indoors for their safety but 24 hours later the Israeli army shelled the house. About half the Palestinians sheltering in the house were children, OCHA said. The report also complains that the Israeli Defence Force prevented medical teams from entering the area to evacuate the wounded.
[snip]
More than 750 Palestinians have died since the start of the Israeli military operation. More than half of Gaza's population are children, and the Palestinian ministry of health said about 42% of the casualties have been children.
Unicef said at least 100 children and minors were killed in the first 10 days of fighting. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, which posts staff at hospitals to track casualties, put this number at more than 160.
[snip]
Mark Regev, an Israeli government spokesman, said: "Israel wants to see no harm to the children of Gaza. On the contrary, we would like to see their children and our children grow up without the fear of violence. Until now, Hamas has deliberately prevented that from becoming reality."
Regev, PR spokes-commissar for the future Apartheid State of Zion is of course a perennial liar. Now, had he said he wanted the children of Gaza and the West Bank to grow up peacefully in a squalid refugee camp in 'Arabia' then I would have gladly believed it. C'mon Mark, you can do it: 'the truth shall set you free'...
posted by Gert @ 5:49 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
This is a tragic incident and it has to be investigated. However, I am certain this is an instance of miscommunication between different army units rather than the intentional murder of civilians. Last week, three Israeli soldiers were killed in a friendly fire incident where a tank shelled a house a different unit was staying in. In the case of the Samouni family, I am sure that one unit told the family to stay in the house while another unit had no idea they were there.
About that last paragraph of yours, with "the future Apartheid State of Zion" and that thing about refugee camps in Arabia: there you go again conflating mainstream Israelis with the far right.
Emm:
"[...] there you go again conflating mainstream Israelis with the far right."
I think you're a well-meaning young man but quite naive. It won't be the moderate left that will stop Israel from continuing its disastrous occupation and colonisation policies, only force (pressure or physical force) will achieve that (and in any case if O/L/B miscalculate, then Bibi will wipe you and yours off the table). The moderate left is probably less than 20 % or so.
As regards the investigation, I'm not interested: the 'final report' will be the usual compromise and half-apology, Hasbara will make sure of that.
However and much more importantly, what Hasbara cannot 'manage' is how it all looks to ordinary people: like bloody murder. Nowadays when another one of your apparatchiks comes on telly to tell us 'they didn't mean it like that', I simply flip to another channel. How boring the Righteous are...
Sounds like you're certain this was intentional murder conducted by the Evil Regime.
No, I believe it was an accident but that's poor solace for the victims.
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