Friday, August 21, 2015
Elder of Ziyon
It tweeted:
#DeirAlBalah: family home bombed. 8 civilians killed. 2 children found on roof: http://t.co/A9ZPlxmS0E #50Days4Gaza pic.twitter.com/SYiBtu9dRl— AmnestyInternational (@AmnestyOnline) August 20, 2015
Soon afterwards, Amnesty-USA-Israel/OPT tweeted this:
20 Aug: #DeirAlBalah Al Louh family HOME bombed. 8 civilians killed; 4 children http://t.co/6E0OsxuGzd #50Days4Justice...— AIUSA Israel/OPT/PA (@IOTPA) August 20, 2015
When you check out this incident in Amnesty's Gaza Platform, you see that unlike most incidents, this is one that Amnesty investigated themselves, rather than copying from PCHR and Al Mezan.
Here's how they describe it:
On Wednesday 20 August 2014, at approximately 5am, an Israeli aircraft dropped a large aerial bomb on the al-Louh family’s two-storey home in the al-Hikr neighbourhood in southern Deir al-Balah. The home of Ra’fat Mustafa Mahmoud al-Louh and his family was completely destroyed and the adjacent home of his father, Mustafa Mahmoud al-Louh, was severely damaged. The two houses are separated by a narrow walkway only a couple of metres wide and share a zinc roof. Ra’fat al-Louh, his heavily pregnant wife, Nabeela Eid al-Louh, and their three children, Mustafa, Maysara and Farah, were all killed in the attack. Ra’fat’s younger brother, Ahmad, who worked with him selling vegetables and was staying in his home, was also killed in the attack. Another brother, Mohammad, was killed when the asbestos roof and walls collapsed on him as he was sleeping in his bedroom in the adjacent house of his father, Mustafa Mahmoud al-Louh, who, along with another son, Mu’min, and his daughter Wafa’ sustained serious injuries. Iman Yunis al-Louh, 18, a niece of Ra’fat’s, died the following day of the injuries she sustained in the attack.So Amnesty investigated - they sent out a field worker, they interviewed family members and they all said that there were no members of militant groups in the family, and Amnesty looked at the terror websites at some point and saw that the casualties were listed as "civilian."
...All witnesses who gave statements said that none of the family members was involved with armed groups.
Ra’fat’s brother Mu’min al-Louh said: “Earlier Ra’fat had gone out with a torch to investigate a rocket that he thought had gone up from the olive fields east of our house. He thought a rocket had fallen on the house. They probably thought that Ra’fat had shot the rocket from the field and thought he was from the resistance.”
... The names of the killed family members are mentioned as “civilians” in the news reporting on the websites of Hamas’ al-Qassam Brigades and Islamic Jihad’s al-Quds Brigades.
It took me literally one minute to Google the name of Mohammed Mustafa al-Louh, and I saw this "martyr's poster" on a fan page that was put up for him.
The "fans" didn't put up his photo with the gun in August. They waited until October 3. Hamas themselves hid many of their members as "mujahideen" for several weeks after the fighting.
But his family members were all buried in Hamas flags, indicating a connection between the family and Hamas. Mohammed was buried wearing a Hamas headband..
And Amnesty documented elsewhere in that same report that sometimes family members lie. (The Al Bayoumi family swore that no one on their building jihadists, bur neighbors said that there were four terrorists who had a command center there.)
Now, how come I could find this in no time and Amnesty could not do something as simple as Googling the Arabic name of the dead who were of military age?
It is an astonishing coincidence that for practically every example of family houses bombed that Amnesty tweeted, I found at least one militant among the dead. What are the odds that this could happen when Amnesty maintains that Israel's attacks were random and indiscriminate?
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