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Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Hamas finds itself innocent. What a surprise.

Al-Arabiya reports that Hamas has investigated itself and found not only that it did nothing wrong, but also that other terror groups didn't either:

The Islamist Hamas movement said Wednesday it has investigated allegations in a U.N. report into last winter's Gaza war and absolved Palestinian armed groups of any atrocities.

Some 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed during the Israeli offensive aimed at halting rocket attacks from the territory ruled by the Islamist group.

But Hamas, which along with other armed groups has launched thousands of makeshift rockets into southern Israel in recent years, said a committee it appointed to follow up on the report found no intention to harm civilians.

"The committee worked around the clock to uncover the facts, despite the certainty that there were no violations of international humanitarian law or international human rights law that amount to war crimes," said the committee head, Hamas justice minister Mohammed Faraj al-Ghul.

"The Palestinian government has on more than one occasion called on armed Palestinian groups to avoid targeting civilians," said the report by Hamas, which has claimed scores of deadly suicide bombings against Israeli civilians.

"(The armed groups) struck military targets and avoided civilian targets, and any accusations related to this concern errant fire."

The Goldstone report said the firing of the hard-to-aim rockets at southern Israel deliberately targeted civilians and could constitute a crime against humanity.
Hamas, during the war, really did claim to only be targeting military sites. For example, this press release from the al-Qassam Brigades English site detailed the targets of all the rockets fired during the war:


Target

Qassam

Grad

Mortar

Military base "Blmakheem"

0

2

0

Military base "Tal Nouf"

0

1

0

Military base "Al Majdal"

26

47

0

Military base "Sdod"

0

36

0

Military base "Beer Al Saba'a"

0

23

0

Military base "Kiryat Gat"

0

3

0

Military base "Hitsareem"

0

16

0

Military base "Sderot"

88

0

0

Military base "Third Eye"

9

0

12

Military base "Miftaheem"

13

0

0

Military base "artillery"

9

0

9

Military base "Ba'eri"

6

0

0

Military base "Talmi Yusif"

3

0

0

Military base "Nir Oz"

4

0

0

Military base "Ami Oz"

2

0

0

Military base "leadership"

2

0

0

Military base "Mageen"

4

0

0

Military base "El-yahoo"

1

0

0

Military base "Abu Salim"

3

0

3

Military base "Nahil Oz"

10

0

10

Military base "Sufa"

6

0

0

Military base "Nitifut"

31

51

0

Military base "Tsailem"

0

6

0

You can see in the table that Hamas just took names of places like Sderot and Kiryat Gat and Ashdod ("Sdod") where ordinary people were targeted and simply re-labeled them as "military bases." As YNet points out, there are no military bases in Sderot.

Before the war, Hamas was not quite as circumspect. In fact, they would openly brag about targeting civilians. For example, this communique from November 16, 2008:

Al Qassam Brigades executed the following mission:

Day: Friday.

Time: Between 8:50 to 09:10.

Operation: Shelling Sderot settlement by eight Qassam rockets.

Result: Number of settlers were wounded.

There are countless other examples of Hamas proudly taking credit for rocket attacks on civilians.

And if you have the slightest thought that Hamas really considered all of the towns listed above to be "military sites," the Qassam Brigades published a similar scorecard of rockets fired on February 27th, 2008, where many of the same cities are listed without the prefix "military base":

In response to the Zionist aggression against the Palestinian people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Al-Qassam Brigades declared the following:

Name

No.

Sedrot settlement

30

Meftahim settlement

4

Kesufim settlement

4

Yad Murdakhi settlement

3

Military site Sofa-Rafah

2

Zikim-north of Gaza strip

4

Intelligence site east of Rafah city

2

Military site Nahil Oz-Gaza

3

Natif Etzra settlement

2

Baeri east of Al Buriej camp

2

Kfar Azza east of Gaza city

1

Military site Erez-Gaza

2

The result of the shelling:

  1. A Zionist settlers was killed in the Sederot.
  2. Huge confusion between the settlers.
The target is explicitly named and celebrated.

It is not hard to find proof that Hamas lies using nothing but Hamas sources.