This year's Pallywood? (update 3)

One of the more disturbing alleged stories from Operation Cast Lead concerns the Abed Rabbo family that was supposedly slaughtered in cold blood by Israeli soldiers.

There have been at least three accounts of this alleged massacre - the Sydney Morning Herald, the Independent and Time magazine. All of them are nonsensical.

Aussie Dave at Israellycool (4:05 PM update) noticed many inconsistencies between the SMH and Independent versions of the events. Read his entire account. Especially note that Khaled Abed Rabbo claims that the Israeli soldier had sidelocks/"ringlets"/payot, while The Independent notes that the only ultra-Orthodox army unit did not go into combat.

Richard at The Augean Stables takes apart the Time magazine account, showing how easily a reporter can be deceived by "eyewitnesses" based on his exacting research with other faked Palestinian Arab accounts of similar IDF 'crimes" that turned out to be fiction.

Read those two accounts. Also notice that there are inconsistencies between the Time version and the others - for example, in Time the soldier kills the two-year old (who was targeted first in all accounts!) with a single shot, in the SMH with three.

One more interesting part regards the Abed Rabbo family. As Israellycool observed a few days later, a family with the same name, who apparently control a district in Jabalya, accused Hamas of using them as human shields. Could the family have been shot by Hamas?

And, finally, Ruthie of America emailed me with another intriguing mention of Khaled Abed Rabbo:

Hamas Cell Uncovered

Israeli authorities announced on March 5 that they discovered a Hamas cell from Jerusalem, Nablus and Ramallah. The group, according to the Shabak, is responsible for the deaths of 22 Israelis and the injury of 345. The five-member group was planning to take hostages in an embassy in Israel in exchange for Hamas detainees in Israeli prisons on March 8. The military court in Lod sentenced two of the members, Khaled Abed Rabou and Majdi Bakhirat to 21 and 19 months respectively.

I don't know if it is the same person, but this is what reporters should be investigating, not taking clearly inconsistent "eyewitness" accounts of fake Israeli massacres at face value.

UPDATE: Here is how PCHR described the incident:

At 14:00 on Wednesday, IOF opened fire at houses in 'Izbat 'Abed Rabbu area, east Jabalia, killing three sisters: Su'ad 'Abed Rabbu, 10; and her sisters Amal, 3; and Samar, 2.

There were many clashes in the 'Izbat 'Abed Rabbu area according to PCHR, so it seems clear that there were lots of terrorists around.

UPDATE 2: Here are some pictures from the neighborhood.

UPDATE 3: CAMERA finds many more inconsistencies, especially between early accounts (that the sisters were killed by either an airstrike or artillery) and the lurid later accounts of cold-blooded executions of children holding white flags.

It appears that the stories get more embellished in time. Like...lies.