It is Very Unlikely the Israelis Caused the Palestinian Beach Deaths!
June 13, 2006
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
In the brief period of time that has elapsed since the beach deaths, I have read several different reports from different sources citing what seem to be legitimate reasons to believe the Palestinian casualties may have been the result of a Palestinian land mine being stepped on by one of the Beach picnic participants, or a stray Palestinian rocket off target.
In all honesty, I cannot be positive, but I do know the Palestinians are certainly capable of such manipulations
of truth into a lie to provoke the maximum degree of outrage against the Israelis by the international community of nations. And I do know that I watched a staged video by the Palestinian Authority of the incident that was as phony as a three dollar bill, with Palestinian actors that were three clicks below the three stooges in talent, but probably the best they could get on short notice.
What follows came from Independent Media Review Analysis (IMRA), and is one of several giving different reasons for believing the deaths were not caused by Israel navy shells.
Begin IMRA Article
Shrapnel Palestinian Doctors Missed Doesn’t Match Artillery Metal
Dr. Aaron Lerner
12 June 2006
Israel Television Channel Two military correspondent Ronnie Daniel broadcast tonight that Israel succeeded in finding shrapnel in the body of a wounded Palestinian who had been brought to Israel after being wounded in the Friday Gaza Beach incident.
Palestinian doctors attempted to remove all shrapnel before transferring wounded to Israel but missed some.
According to Daniel, Israel found that the composition of the metal shrapnel does not match the metal composition of Israeli artillery shells. Final analysis of the metal has not been completed.
In addition, the crater on
the beach does not have the characteristic of craters formed by an artillery shell and the timing of the incident does not coincide with the firing of Israeli artillery.
End IMRA Article
After I had completed this Blog, a later Jerusalem Post Report came in, and I thought it appropriate to also include it. It certainly is beginning to look like the beach deaths of the Palestinians were not the result of Israeli activities.
Begin Jerusalem Post Article
Report: Chances slim that IDF shell killed Gazans on beach
JPost Staff, THE JERUSALEM POST
June 13, 2006
The IDF probe investigating the deaths of
seven Palestinian civilians, caused by an explosion on a beach in Gaza on Friday evening, concluded that chances were slim that the accident was caused by IDF shelling.
According to Channel 2, the findings, expected to be formally released on Tuesday, showed an inconsistency between the shrapnel found in the body of one of the wounded babies and the metal used in IDF artillery.
Moreover, the investigation noted the absence of a large enough crater at the site of the explosion, as would be expected if an IDF shell had landed there.
The third observation casting doubt on the possibility of IDF shelling was the gap between the time when the army shot the artillery and when the commotion on the beach began.
According to the probe’s findings, several minutes past after the shelling, before the Palestinians on the beach reacted.
On Saturday evening Gaza Division Commander Brig.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi insisted that the sites that were shelled by the IDF were the places from where Kassam rockets were launched. He noted those places were frequently targeted by the IDF, and were known to be dangerous places.
The leading theory currently entertained, suggested that an explosive charge, buried by Palestinians on the Gaza beach to prevent Israeli infiltration, was behind the explosion.
Throughout the whole investigation, army officials complained about the lack of Palestinian cooperation. Unconfirmed reports further suggested attempts by Palestinians to remove shrapnel from the bodies of the wounded, treated in Israeli hospitals, thus impeding the investigation.
The Palestinians originally claimed that the explosion was caused by Naval shelling, but that possibility, as well as the notion of an IAF assault was dismissed early in the investigation.
Shortly after the accident, the IDF, including the Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz, expressed regret at the deaths of the seven civilians, but claimed it was too early to conclude that the IDF was responsible.
A probe headed by Deputy Head of the IDF Ground Forces Command Maj.-Gen. Meir Kalifi was commissioned to investigate the incident.
End Jerusalem Post Article
A third article that came out after the first two, which follows, leaves little doubt that the IDF is not guilty of the charges made against them for the killing of the Palestinians on the beach.
I believe the charges made against them are bogus.
Begin Second Jerusalem Post Article
IDF Says it’s not Responsible for Gaza Beach Blast
Yaakov Katz, THE JERUSALEM POST
June 13, 2006
“The IDF is innocent,” was the bottom line that came out of a press conference Tuesday night, during which Defense Minister Amir Peretz, Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz and other top officers presented the findings of an internal military investigation into Friday’s explosion that killed seven Palestinians as they picnicked on a Gaza beach.
In a press conference at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, Peretz told reporters that following an extensive three-day investigation the IDF had collected sufficient evidence to prove that Friday’s explosion was not caused by Israel. The evidence was being presented first and foremost to the Israeli people, Peretz emphasized, saying, “We owe it to ourselves to know that we did not cause these deaths.”
“We have sufficient evidence which confirms our suspicion that the attempts to portray this incident as caused by Israel were wrong,” Peretz said. “I know it is difficult to explain this, but the facts that have accumulated prove that Israel was not behind the incident.”
In contrast to daily Palestinian rocket attacks against Israel, Peretz added, the IDF made great efforts to avoid harming innocent Palestinians.
“In all IDF operations one of the issues that is taken into consideration and sometimes adds risk to ourselves is the need to not cause harm to innocent civilians,” the defense minister said.
Halutz said that, while the IDF expressed regret immediately following
the incident, it did not mean to take upon itself responsibility for the explosion. Referring to Tuesday’s missile strike on an Islamic Jihad terror cell in Gaza that killed eight innocent Palestinians, Halutz stressed that the rocket cells operated from within densely populated areas.
“We will not let them get away with their attacks and the [responsibility] for the price the Palestinians are paying lies on the shoulders of the Palestinian Authority and the other groups that should be doing everything possible to prevent these events from occurring,” Halutz said.
Peretz also expressed regret for the harm caused to innocent civilians in Tuesday’s missile strike. But, he said, “all the organizations attacking us are trying to hurt our civilians.
They act from within population centers while knowing that they are endangering the population.”
“The bottom line,” Halutz said, “is that we are very sad that innocent people were killed due to an explosion that happened on the seashore of the Gaza Strip but it has no connection to Israeli military activity that happened that same day.”
Presenting the technical findings was Deputy Head of the IDF Ground Forces Command Maj.-Gen. Meir Klifi, who headed up the investigation into the incident on Friday. Standing in front of an array of maps and movie screens, Klifi showed aerial photographs of IDF attacks on northern Gaza that day while presenting the time line of events that led to the deadly explosion on the beach.
An analysis of the location of the incident together with its timing – between 16:57 and 17:10 – Klifi said, proved that Israel could not have been behind the explosion since neither the Air Force, the Navy nor artillery cannons were in action at the time.
One IAF strike on the Gaza Strip that day, he said, occurred 2.5 kilometers from the scene of the explosion and two other strikes took place hours earlier. Ruling out Navy fire, Klifi said that “every 76-mm. shell fired from the navy boats can be accounted for since they all hit their targets successfully.” In fact, Klifi said, “the ones that fell closest to the location of the incident were fired four hours earlier.”
Artillery shelling, he added, could also not have been responsible for the explosion.
A piece of shrapnel taken from one of the wounded being treated in an Israeli hospital
and cross-checked with 155-mm. Shells used by the IDF proved that the explosion was not ca
used by Israeli artillery fire. “The fragment taken out of the wounded showed absolutely that it is not connected to any [type of] Israeli ammunition used that day,” Halutz said.
The army, Klifi said, has also accounted for five of the six shells that were fired in the area Friday evening before the beach explosion.
None of them exploded nearby, he said, adding that the one shell that was not accounted for was fired before the five others and more than 10 minutes before the blast.
End Second Jerusalem Post Article
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