Showing posts with label human shields. Show all posts
Showing posts with label human shields. Show all posts

Friday, December 22, 2023

On Thursday, the Washington Post published an investigation  casting doubt on whether Shifa Hospital in Gaza was being used as a Hamas command center.

Its top major finding: "The rooms connected to the tunnel network discovered by IDF troops showed no immediate evidence of military use by Hamas."

The key to the story is the word "immediate:"
“The law is about what was in the mind of the attacker at the time the attacker planned and executed the mission with respect to both what they expected the collateral damage they expected to cause and the military advantage they anticipated gaining,” said Michael Schmitt, an emeritus professor at the U.S. Naval War College.

The IDF would not comment on the military advantage sought or achieved.

What was the urgency? This is not yet being demonstrated,” said Yousuf Syed Khan, a senior lawyer with Global Rights Compliance, a law firm, who has drafted U.N. reports on siege warfare.

While the underground tunnel uncovered by Israeli forces after the raid does point to a possible militant presence underneath the hospital at some point, it does not prove that a command node was operating there during the war.

“We’re getting more of a granular, three-dimensional understanding of al-Shifa Hospital, the tunnels underneath it,” said Brian Finucane, a former legal adviser at the State Department and now a senior adviser at Crisis Group.

“What we’re really lacking here is a confident understanding of the fourth dimension, which is time. When were various elements of the hospital being used in certain ways? When were the tunnels beneath the hospital complex being used in certain ways?”
The Washington Post has its doubts:
The bare, white-tiled rooms showed no immediate evidence of use — for command and control or otherwise. There are no signs of recent habitation, including litter, food containers, clothing or other personal items.  
Let's look at the context.

Hamas' use of the hospital for military purposes was well known as early as 2006. Even the Washington Post itself wrote in 2014 that it  “has become a de facto headquarters for Hamas leaders, who can be seen in the hallways and offices.” 

Israel had built bunkers under the hospital when Gaza was under Israeli control, but bunkers aren't tunnels. However, we know that there were tunnels under Gaza's Al Wehda Street that were bombed in the 2014 war, and that street leads directly to the hospital compound. Given that Hamas built hundreds of tunnel shafts underneath their offices and leaders' homes, it is apparent that there were connections between Hamas offices in the hospital basement and the tunnels under Al Wehda Street.


Israel might not have revealed the specific locations of each shaft, and that is hardly important considering that there is no doubt that these tunnels existed directly underneath a hospital.

Just as there is no doubt that the only purpose of these tunnels, underground rooms and bathrooms is military. They aren't hotels or summer camps.

The IDF first laid out a specific series of accusations about the Shifa Hospital on October 27, nearly three weeks before the raid, before the ground war even began. There were unofficial discussions of Shifa Hospital before that. It didn't show "urgency" - it showed unheard-of patience before moving in.

Hamas knew the IDF was coming for them. And they had weeks to clear out and clean up the evidence from the tunnels (even though they left behind plenty of weapons on the hospital grounds themselves, which were harder to clean up since there were so many people around.)

Here's the part that no one is talking about: The IDF knew quite well that they were giving Hamas a heads up that they were coming. They knew Hamas would not stay and it would hide evidence of explicit military use. So why give the warning at all? Why not surprise Hamas? What army tells the enemy where they will be going?

The warning was meant to force Hamas commanders to move to other areas. 

This achieves three military aims. Firstly, it  disrupts their operations temporarily. Secondly,  it allows the IDF to go there, gather evidence and valuable intelligence like footage from cameras, and destroy the military infrastructure beneath Shifa without a firefight and endangering patients and civilians taking shelter. And thirdly, Hamas leaders moving to other areas allows Israel to attack them without worrying about the complexity of protecting hospital patients during a battle.

Israel has now released evidence that Hamas brought hostages to Shifa. The tunnels had electricity and plumbing that were attached to Shifa's infrastructure. Weapons were found in the radiology ward and in a garage on Shifa's grounds. We know that employees and even directors at other hospitals were also Hamas terrorists. The Gaza health ministry is Hamas and it admits its officials have Hamas military rank. While there might not be direct evidence of Hamas using those tunnels underneath Shifa in mid-November as their main headquarters, no one can seriously doubt that Hamas used the hospital for military purposes and that the reason was to use the patients as human shields. 

Israel managed to clear Hamas out of the hospital it was using for military purposes with a minimum of fighting and a minimum of physical destruction. That is not violating international law - it is adhering to it in ways far beyond the limited imaginations of those whose entire worldview is poisoned by always assuming malevolence from Israel.



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Thursday, November 23, 2023















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Thursday, September 21, 2023



Israel haters were given a huge gift this week courtesy of anti-government protester Shira Eting.

Eting, interviewed by Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes, said, "I was a combat helicopter pilot…. If you want pilots to be able to fly and shoot bombs and missiles into houses knowing they might be killing children, they must have the strongest confidence in the people making those decisions."

The modern antisemites have been having a field day with an attractive and articulate Israeli woman matter of factly saying that Israelis knowingly shoot missiles into homes that kill children. Here we have proof of how monstrous Israelis are - even leftist Israelis!

A number of years ago, I looked at a B'Tselem report on families killed in their homes during 2014's Operation Protective Edge. Even that incomplete report showed that many families were acting as human shields for the terrorists - sometimes the shields were the terrorists' own families, and sometimes the terrorists were sheltering in an innocent family home. 

I did further research and listed over a hundred children who were used as human shields to protect terrorists, often senior terrorists.

This is only what I could find out with open source research. But it proves the point: Israel is not going to bomb a house unless it has excellent intelligence that the house is a legitimate military target. Perhaps a senior terrorists is inside, perhaps a weapons cache is underneath, perhaps a command and control center is in the apartment next door. 

As long as the military advantage outweighs the collateral damage, this is a moral decision and also legal under international law.  While we are not privy to the specific calculus that Israel uses in making those decisions, it employs teams of lawyers to review every airstrike and goes to great lengths - never reported in the media - to ensure that it minimizes mistakes. Israel goes above and beyond the requirements of the Laws of Armed Conflict in its own policy decisions. 

Eting caused more harm to Israel with her out of context quote than the proposed judicial reforms she is protesting could possibly do. But she wasn't wrong in what she said: in the real world, in real wars, decisions must be made that sometimes mean children would die. 

In the case of Gaza, that is entirely the fault of the terrorists who deliberately choose to locate military targets in residential areas. 




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Monday, August 21, 2023

Every year, Lynn Hastings, the UN Humanitarian and Resident Coordinator in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, issues a press release before the school year discussing how Israel and Jewish settlers have been awful to Palestinian children.

This year, as far as I can tell for the first time, the press release also mentions a couple of ways that Palestinian terror groups are endangering Palestinian children..
Physical barriers placed by Palestinians in refugee camps, some rigged with explosive materials, are threatening the safety of children and making it harder for them to reach their classrooms.  And reports continue of children being enrolled in “summer camps” by armed groups, increasing their risk of being exposed to violence or military content.   
I've mentioned that the IEDs that Palestinian terror groups have been placing on the roads of camps in order to blow up Israeli vehicles are a danger to ordinary Palestinians, but this is the first time I have seen any NGO mention the danger, even if it downplays the danger.

Similarly, even though these "summer camps" have been run by terror groups for decades, this is the first time I have seen the UN say anything negative about them. The sentence is comical: "increasing their risk of being exposed?" That is the entire purpose of the camps, and there are lots of videos and photos showing the children with real or mock weapons!


Hastings fails to mention that most of the "children" killed by Israel this year were either child soldiers recruited by terror groups or were actively engaged in attacks. 

Perhaps the UN felt forced to mention Palestinian responsibility towards the children's welfare because it has had to admit that it couldn't open up schools in the Lebanese Ein el-Hilweh camp because of terror groups that have taken over the schools.

Although there is plenty wrong with this press release, it is  a slight improvement over the obsessively one-sided anti-Israel propaganda of the past.




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Wednesday, July 12, 2023




PCHR reported on July 3 that Israeli forces shot Ali Hani Al-Ghoul in the chest, killing him. It admitted that he was a member of an armed group and said he was 20 years old.

Later, the Israel/Palestine Timeline site said that al-Ghoul was shot in the head, and that he was 17 years old.


His mother brought back some of her memories with her little Ali, which she will never forget; She says, "About two years ago, Ali used to come home at night, with his clothes dusty and his eyes red, and he was suffering from severe pain, which was caused by the explosive materials he was using."

"Ali was one of the resistance fighters who made explosive devices in the Jenin camp from primitive materials, but their impact was great and effective by damaging many Israeli military vehicles," according to his mother, who expressed her pride in what her son did and what his friends say about his actions that are beyond his age.
That means that Ali al-Ghoul had been building bombs since he was 15 years old.

Now, the Jenin Brigades division of Islamic Jihad have issued a video celebrating Al-Ghoul's "martyrdom" - showing him building IEDs together with other children. 



It doesn't show anyone else's faces, but you can see that the hands that are stuffing explosive powder into IEDs are not those of full grown adults. 

Jenin's bomb-makers are children.

Ali's mother continues: “Before Ali left the house, he carried a sack full of explosive devices on his shoulder, and later he planted them in the streets and alleys of Jenin camp with the help of his friends, who confirmed that Ali participated with them in a confrontation with the occupation from zero distance."

Palestinian terror groups recruit children to build bombs.

They encourage kids to turn their homes into bomb depots.

They instruct children to plant these bombs in the roads of Jenin where they can kill not only the children but anyone who happens to come by.

And they freely and proudly admit this.

This is not just child abuse: this is systemic and widespread child abuse that is a source of pride to Palestinians.

Now listen to the silence from UNICEF, the UN Human Rights Council, Defense for Children-International, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.  






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Sunday, July 09, 2023




The Times of Israel reported last week during the Jenin operation:

The Israel Defense Forces says troops located and destroyed at least 11 improvised explosive devices hidden along roads in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank.

Operatives of terror groups “are planting IEDs and bombs on the roads in the refugee camp and in the city, in a civilian environment. This poses a threat to the security forces who use the roads in counterterrorism activities and to innocent people who also use them,” the IDF says in a statement.

The military says that during the last few hours, dozens of combat engineering vehicles have been combing the streets for such IEDs.
This is confirmed by the Washington Post:
One long street was plowed like a farm furrow where Israeli bulldozers had intentionally detonated explosives embedded in the pavement.
Embedded explosives in the ground are pretty much the definition of landmines. The Jenin terrorists are burying landmines in their own town, where their own people could be killed.

If the mines can be triggered by a person, they are considered illegal under the 1997 Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention.

It sure looks like many of these IEDs can indeed be triggered by someone stepping on them. Here is a relatively small one being detonated by the IDF.




I have yet to see a condemnation by any NGO or state about Palestinians putting their own people at risk of being blown up by these IEDs. 

Israel's clearing of the mines is considered a bigger crime than the mines themselves. 

Which tells you a lot.

UPDATE: The "State of Palestine" acceded to the 1997 Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, which proves yet again that the only reason they signed these conventions was to be accepted as a state, but had no intention to actually do anything to adhere to the various conventions' rules. (h/t Ian)



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Sunday, March 12, 2023

This frame appears to show a muzzle flash, but the WaPo can't see it.



The Washington Post has an article that they believe damns IDF troops - and they are so excited about it they took away the paywall so everyone can see their computer-modeled 3D analysis.

They did indeed document a war crime, but not the one they are pretending to have uncovered.

Israeli security forces in an armored vehicle fired repeatedly into a group of civilians sheltering between a mosque and a clinic after a Feb. 22 raid in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, killing two people, including a teenager, and wounding three others, according to witnesses and a visual reconstruction of the event by The Washington Post.
For all the fancy 3-D modeling and hundreds of photos they claim to have used, the newspaper relies completely on one video, taken from above, showing a man with his arm extended with what appears to be a gun, and then running for cover. It is in the third part of this video:


The newspaper tries to claim that there is no evidence that the gunshot one can hear was from that gun, and even says, " The videos reviewed by The Post do not clearly show whether the man had a gun or fired, and none of the witnesses interviewed by The Post said they saw a gunman fire at the Israelis." Yet there appears to be a muzzle flash at the very beginning of the video (see photo above.)  It is ignored by the Post.

They consult two experts about the two bangs heard, who say wildly different things: one says that they are not gunshots at all, and the other says they are gunshots but come from the Israelis, without saying how he could make such a distinction. 

If two experts cannot even agree if a sound is gunfire or not, then what value do they add? The answer is that the WaPo can claim that they consulted audio experts when coming up with their foregone conclusion, even when they don't agree on anything!

When you look at the video of the man who appeared to be pointing a weapon then running to where the civilians are trying to avoid gunfire, it is obvious that he is holding something heavy like a gun. If his hands were empty he would not be running with his arms close together in front of him; his arms would be pumping at his sides the way normal people run.




Moreover, the civilians are running away before the IDF vehicle is shooting anything. (Look at the ones in the sunken plaza.) It appears they are running away from previous Palestinian gunshots, not Israeli.

The nature of open source forensics is that they are necessarily incomplete. We have no idea if there are any gunmen in the building behind the civilians, or on surrounding roofs, or across the street that may have shot the victims. The IDF did certainly fire in this video; we can see that some shots hit the pillar.  But even if the IDF did shoot at the gunman and accidentally hit the victims, it is not a war crime. It is a split-second decision based on the information the soldiers had - they were being shot at, the gunman went for cover behind a stone pillar, and they were responding to the likelihood that the gunman would resume shooting at them as they passed the pillar. It is unclear that the soldiers even saw the civilians on the top of the stairs before the gunman ran to cover behind the pillar.

The entire life and death decision needed to be evaluated and made in fractions of a second.

Under the laws of armed conflict, while the existence of civilians is one factor to be weighed in such a decision,  it is not the only factor. Troops are allowed and expected to defend themselves. A known gunman who runs for cover behind a pillar and who is about to be in line of sight is certainly a legitimate military target. 

In peacetime, police are held to this higher standard of doing everything possible to avoid accidentally hitting civilians even if it means the gunman gets away. For armed conflicts, the laws are different. But the Washington Post doesn't say that  - their entire article is geared towards the idea that the IDF had no right to target an armed man who was hiding among civilians. (And they know quite well that the civilians were not the intended targets.)

Isn't it interesting that the Post spent weeks and used four reporters with several experts consulted, and yet didn't even ask an international law expert whether Israel violated the laws of armed conflict? 

And that brings up the other omission in the Washington Post's coverage: the armed man ran for shelter among civilians, making them into human shields. I mean this literally - he placed himself behind civilian bodies knowing that he was a target, possibly even shoving one person aside. And that really is a war crime!

Apparently,  the reporters know quite well that the IDF didn't violate any laws. And that the Palestinian gunman did. And they don't want their readers to know that.

Remarkably, whenever the news media spends lots of time and money putting together elaborate 3D models of something involving Israel, it is always to say Israel is guilty. They try to replace honest investigations with razzle dazzle. And they are nearly always wrong.

When you put it all together, this article, like the others, is not meant to illuminate the truth, but to obfuscate it. 




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Thursday, October 27, 2022

Last year, during the May 2021 fighting in Gaza, an IAF missile destroyed an apartment in Gaza City, killing a mother and two of her children - Rima Telbani(31), Zeid(4) and Maryam(2).

Israel was blamed for targeting civilians. The New York Times published a  photo of the children

Today, another victim of that attack succumbed to his wounds. His name is Muhammad Ouda Yousef Al-Telbani.



In fact, in the building at the same time were two other senior Hamas terrorists who were killed - who were not mentioned by PCHR.

Which means that the building was almost certainly a command and control center - and the cute Telbani kids were human shields for Hamas, including for their father. 

That changes the story a bit, doesn't it?




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Tuesday, October 25, 2022


Amnesty International has released a report on the August mini-war in Gaza where they say that Israel should be investigated for war crimes. (Unusually, they also accuse Islamic Jihad of possible war crimes for a single rocket misfire.)

Amnesty investigated three incidents, two of which are from Israeli fire. The first one:

Amnesty International has examined in detail two Israeli attacks that must be investigated as possible war crimes because they appear either to have deliberately targeted civilians or civilian objects or to have been indiscriminate attacks. On 5 August 2022, an Israeli tank round struck the house of the alAmour family in Khan Yunis, where 11 civilians were staying, killing Duniana al-Amour, aged 22, and wounding her mother and her sister. Based on its identification of the projectile that struck the house as a “highly accurate” 120mm M339 tank round, and its calculation of the distance between the house and the closest military objects using satellite imagery, Amnesty International believes that the al-Amour family’s house was the intended target of the attack. The killing of Duniana al-Amour and the apparently deliberate targeting of her house must therefore be investigated as a possible war crime. 

It does appear that Israel targeted a house. Amnesty says  it "found no evidence that any members of the al-Amour family could reasonably be believed to be involved in armed combat.  "

This is true. But Amnesty is hiding something - something that they certainly reviewed before writing this report. They are hiding what the ITIC wrote about this attack, that one of the "civilians" in the house was Islamic Jihad's commander of the southern Gaza Strip.

The ITIC is close to the Israeli military. It said that the fatal attack on the Falluja cemetery was from the IDF when even Haaretz assumed it was an errant Islamic Jihad rocket, so it cannot be accused of lying. It is the closest thing we have to an official IDF comment on the incident. 

If a senior commander was in the house, it was a valid military target. It is a tragedy but certainly not a war crime.

Amnesty doesn't want you to know that, so they simply don't report it.

The second incident:

In another instance, on 7 August 2022, a missile apparently fired from a drone hit Al-Falluja cemetery in Jabalia, killing five children and seriously injuring another. Based on a review of pictures of the weapon’s remnants, Amnesty International determined that they were consistent with an Israeli guided missile. Unnamed sources from the Israeli army told an Israeli newspaper that a preliminary internal probe conducted by the army into the attack showed that neither Palestinian Islamic Jihad nor the AlQuds Brigades were firing rockets at the time of the attack and that Israel was carrying out attacks on “targets” near the area. Satellite imagery showed that there were no military targets visible in the area 10 days before the attack and residents interviewed by Amnesty International said that none appeared in the intervening period. There are strong indications that the strike on Al-Falluja cemetery was either a direct attack on civilians or an indiscriminate attack where Israel failed to comply with the obligation to take all feasible precautions to distinguish between civilians and fighters.   
Notice how Amnesty assumes that the Israeli sources are simply lying when they say there were targets in the area. A "target" is likely a member or leader of  Islamic Jihad. 10-day old satellite imagery will not find such a target, and residents being interviewed sure as hell will not admit they saw a militant even if they did. Amnesty simply assumes Israel either targeted kids for fun, or didn't check for civilians. It does not even consider that the laws of war say that a military commander can act based on the best intelligence information available at the time - he or she does not have to wait for 100% accuracy. Sometimes, as in this case, the information was not accurate enough and there is a tragedy.  

And while Amnesty investigated only one (of several) Islamic Jihad rockets that fell short and killed people, it emphasizes that everything ends up being Israel's fault: "Israel’s apartheid remains the root cause of Palestinians’ suffering and the recurring violations against them and must be dismantled." Even though the August hostilities had nothing to do with the scurrilous "apartheid" accusation, to Amnesty, Israel's existence is the original sin.

And one that it is doing everything it can to destroy.

UPDATE: The Amnesty video accompanying the report mentions the Islamic Jihad rocket that killed 7 children - but then blames that on Israel as well.








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Friday, October 14, 2022

From Ian:

Lapid's Two State Solution
What did Yair Lapid mean by his foregoing statement? Did he mean 2 states in an undivided Jerusalem or Jerusalem undivided as an Israel state with the Palestinian Arab state established elsewhere? If the former, he would find a majority in Israel would not accept this. If the latter, no Palestinian Arab or Arab leader would accept it.

What he should have done was to make use of an expert historian to proof positive Jewish indigenous rights to the Land of Israel, After all, during Temple Times , we learn of the Jews and the Romans. Subsequently the Greeks. The words, "Palestinians" and Arabs" don't appear until many centuries later.

To begin with, he could share the words of Lloyd George, who was outraged by the claim that Arabs had been treated unfairly in Palestine---":

"No race has done better out of the fidelity with which the Allies redeemed their promises to the oppressed races than the Arabs. Owing to the tremendous sacrifices of the Allied Nations, and more particularly of Britain and her Empire, the Arabs have already won independence in Iraq, Arabia, Syria, and Trans-jordania, although most of the Arab races fought throughout the War for the Turkish oppressors---[In particular ] the Palestinian Arabs for Turkish rule."[ A Mandate for Israel by Douglas J. Feith].

Perhaps the greatest lesson for Lapid is demonstrated by history - Appeasement mostly does not work and it certainly does not win.
Ruthie Blum: It makes sense to be suspicious of the maritime deal
Jaw-dropping press conference
LAPID’S PRIME-time press conference was just as jaw-dropping. Lauding the great “achievements” that Israel made by (ostensibly) rejecting a set of Lebanon’s additional demands, he boasted that the cabinet had approved the deal and thanked Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron for their help and support. Oy.

He proceeded to acknowledge that the agreement “staves off the possibility of a flare-up with Hezbollah,” quickly averring that “Israel is not afraid of Hezbollah. The IDF is stronger than any terror organization, and if we went to battle, we would deal it a heavy blow. That being said, if it’s possible to prevent war, it’s the job of a responsible government to do so.”

Questioned by a reporter about the government’s consent to circumvent a Knesset vote, he blabbered about the legality of the decision. Then he let the cat out of the bag.

“In light of the utterly profligate behavior of the opposition, we didn’t think that it would be [the] right [thing to do],” he explained.

In other words, the risk of Hezbollah interference in Israel’s gas mining is smaller in Lapid’s eyes than a potential parliamentary thumbs-down. Which brings us to Iran.

Biden's horrific foreign policy
DESPITE THE ongoing protests across the Islamic Republic that are providing a glimmer of hope about the ultimate fall of the regime, the US administration is continuing to convey its desperation to revive the nuclear pact and fill Tehran’s coffers with billions of dollars. This travesty is typical of Biden’s horrific foreign policy.

Israel cannot afford to follow in such ill-fated footsteps. Nevertheless, National Security Adviser Eyal Hulata defended the gas deal on the ridiculous grounds that it “goes against Iran’s interest in Lebanon and weakens Hezbollah’s hold on the government in Beirut.”

Really?

No wonder Udi Adiri, Israel’s longtime lead maritime border and gas extraction negotiator, resigned a couple of weeks ago in exasperation over the contents of the document that was crafted against his better judgment. This didn’t have an effect on what is going to be a signed, sealed and delivered deal on October 31, the day of Aoun’s exit and 24 hours before Israelis head to the polls.

No, you don’t have to be a maritime expert to grasp the magnitude of the gambit. Common sense and experience ought to suffice, if not in Israel’s soon-to-be-shuffled halls of power, then at least at the ballot box.
'All my family and friends turned against me when I enlisted in the IDF'
The Israel Defense Forces' Desert Reconnaissance Battalion is one of a kind: not only are its fighters volunteers, but they come from Muslim, Christian, and Circassian backgrounds, often having left their families and friends, who opposed their enlistment, behind.

They have served on the border with the Gaza Strip for many years, protecting Israel and putting their lives on the line.

According to one of the fighters, "there are people here whose identities cannot be revealed not because of the operational aspects, but because of what would happen to them if their photos or names were made public." The unit was established in 1986 in order to regulate the enlistment of Bedouin youth in the IDF. What began as a small unit has over time grown into a battalion.

When the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993, the unit became operational and was stationed along the Gaza border. During the Second Intifada, between 2000 and 2005, the fighters participated actively in operations in the strip, especially the Philadelphia Route, combating underground tunnels and the spread of terror.

In January 2002, four of the battalion's fighters were killed in an attack on an outpost near the Kerem Shalom border crossing, where several years later Gilad Shalit would be captured, and where the fighters carried out patrols with us, the journalists, in the dead of night.

Lt. Col. Guy Madar, 33, married and father of five from the Karmei Katif settlement in southern Israel, has been commanding the battalion for the past three months. He grew up in the Givati Brigade, and when he reached the rank of major general, he naturally wanted to continue his service in the purple brigade.

But today, he says, he could not be prouder of his fighters, even though sometimes the Arabic language, which is used outside of operational activity – as that is only conducted in Hebrew – is a challenge for him.

"I manage. The soldiers know Hebrew, and othertimes, they help me. My ambition is to learn Arabic. This is my first job as a battalion commander, but I got to know the Bedouin patrol unit because they are trained in a Givati base. But you only think you know something before you actually do it. Before that, there are a lot of preconceived notions. When I joined, I discovered how amazingly they operated. I grew up in Givati and I wanted to be an officer in Givati, and I will honestly say that at first, I was a little disappointed because I had a lot of fears, we all have our prejudices. It was only when I joined that I found out how serious this unit is. The fighters really don't get the appreciation they deserve.

"When I say that I am the commander of the Bedoun patrol unit, everyone tells me that it must be challenging and asks how I manage. My answer is that it is like any fighting unit in the IDF. That it is a group of fighters who want to contribute. They are strong, good fighters, and know the sector like the back of their hand. I have a company commander who has been here since 2013. Everyone who comes across the unit discovers that they are wonderful guys, not spoiled, who just want to fight and contribute to the country."

Tuesday, August 23, 2022

There was a pretty large explosion in a house in western Khan Younis, Gaza today.

One child was killed and a girl was injured.

Based on the photos, this looks like it is very possibly a "work accident" where some terror group was building bombs and rockets in a residential building.



And this was confirmed in this IDF tweet:

Weapons stored unsafely in the house of a member of a Palestinian terrorist group exploded and killed a young child in the vicinity.  
Don't expect to see this child's photo and name plastered all over social media.



Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

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Friday, August 12, 2022

The Fallujah cemetery in Jabalya, where 5 children were killed by an Islamic Jihad rocket.
Note the spray pattern of tiny holes from the shrapnel that PIJ uses to maximize death and damage.


The response of "human rights groups" to the fighting in Gaza last weekend proves, beyond any doubt, how they try to obscure the truth about Islamic Jihad's killing of over 20 civilians, including at least 12 children - even though they know the truth quite well.

No fewer than four human rights groups have investigated every death in Gaza last week. If you parse their statements carefully, every one of them know that Islamic Jihad rockets killed most of the kids.

And not one will say this explicitly, because that would water down their criticism of Israel.

Gaza's Health Ministry says that 48 were killed over the weekend (and from their wounds since) including 16 children. PCHR issued their summary in their weekly report yesterday, after they have had four days to investigate the deaths. They count 27 deaths in Gaza - and say "Meanwhile, PCHR is still investigating other incidents that inflicted casualties and damage to property." They list only 3 children.

They completely ignore the deaths of (by their count) 21 civilians, including 12 children (the last one may have died after their report was prepared.) 

What kind of a human rights group ignores the violent death of 12 children, not even mentioning them beyond a laconic mention of "other incidents that inflicted casualties"?

A typical one, it seems. Because we see the same lack of interest in mentioning Islamic Jihad rockets at the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, 47 Palestinians were killed during the offensive, including 16 children and four women, and 360 others were injured, including 151 children and 58 women. Eighteen residential units were destroyed, while dozens of others were partially damaged.

Al Mezan’s fieldwork team works to document and investigate every single act of hostilities that occurred in the Gaza Strip and has so far verified the killing of 27 Palestinians and the complete destruction of 12 homes by Israeli forces. Al Mezan continues to conduct its own independent field investigations and collect information on all incidents of killing and damaging or destruction of houses, property, and other civilian objects in Gaza.
They know at least 20 civilians were killed by Islamic Jihad - and they refuse to even mention the possibility. 12 kids dead and the two major Palestinian human rights groups ignore them.

But it is not only Palestinian human rights NGOs. The Palestinian division of Defense for Children International has done the exact same thing. As I have reported, their headline is meant to give people the impression that Israel killed 16 children: "16 Palestinian children in Gaza dead after Israeli military offensive." But they can only document 3 children, and say, "DCIP is still investigating the source of four explosions across the Gaza Strip that killed another 13 Palestinian children. "

At least DCI-P mentions the possibility of the children being killed by rocket fire, unlike PCHR and Al Mezan. But even after listing the mysterious unknown explosions, they emphasize that they want to blame Israel alone, saying, "The Israeli military launched airstrikes across the Gaza Strip on August 5, killing at least 44 people and injuring at least 350, according to Al Jazeera." Their own investigations proves Al Jazeera is lying, but they want to blame Israel for the deaths of the children so they artfully write a report to give that impression.

And then there is the UN Human Rights Office of the Commissioner, which issued a press release that heavily implies that Israel is responsible for the deaths of all Gazans, but doesn't directly say it - because they know the truth as well. 

UN Human Rights Chief Michelle Bachelet today expressed alarm at the high number of Palestinians, including children, killed and injured in the occupied Palestinian territory this year, including in intense hostilities between Israel and Palestinian armed groups in Gaza last weekend.

The civilian cost of the latest escalation in Gaza from 5-7 August was heavy. The UN Human Rights Office has verified that among the 48 Palestinians killed, there were at least 22 civilians, including 17 children and four women. The status of 22 fatalities remains undetermined. 

...In violation of international humanitarian law, Palestinian armed groups also launched hundreds of rockets and mortars in indiscriminate attacks, causing civilian casualties and damage to civilian objects in Israel as well as in Gaza.
You really have to parse the press release carefully to realize that they are barely hinting that some 20 civilians were killed by Islamic Jihad - and they don't mention that the majority of those "undetermined" ones are children. 

All four of these human rights NGOs clearly know the truth, and all of them bend over backwards to obfuscate it and direct their audience's anger at Israel only - even though their own investigations indicate that over 80% of the children were killed by Islamic Jihad.

By blaming Israel exclusively for the deaths of the children, they are engaging in a blood libel, saying that Jews either purposefully target children or show a wanton disregard for their lives. In fact, every single child that was killed by Israeli airstrikes had been either a human shield or an unfortunate casualty during an attack on a legitimate military target, and there is no evidence of the slightest bit of Israeli negligence or violation of international law.

But beyond that, they have not issued a single word of condemnation for Islamic Jihad, not even mentioning its name. By ignoring or downplaying the rocket attacks and only blaming Israel, they are exonerating Islamic Jihad's war crimes. 

Even worse, these reports from four major human rights NGOs show that the lives of the children really do not matter to them unless they can blame Israel. Their careful language is meant to hide the facts. Unless dead kids can be blamed on Israel, they don't want to talk about them. They try not to technically lie but they sure as hell don't want to tell the truth. 

Which means that these are not human rights organizations. They are anti-Israel organizations who use human rights as a weapon against the Jewish state.  







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Thursday, August 11, 2022

Defence for Children-Palestine is a rabidly anti-Israel NGO that uses the deaths of children as a means to attack Israel. 

To give an idea of how little context they give their stories, they are counting 16-year old terrorist Hussein Taha, being mourned as a jihadi fighter, as a "child" killed by Israel. 

In an article about the children killed over the weekend in Gaza, their headline is written to imply Israel was responsible for 16 children being killed:


But when you read the article, you see that they really only know about three - and the other 13 are still being "investigated."

Israeli forces killed three Palestinian children in three separate airstrikes between August 5–7, according to information collected by DCIP, while DCIP field researchers continue to investigate four other incidents where 13 Palestinian children were killed. 

Which means they know very well that the 13 were killed by Islamic Jihad rockets in four separate incidents: 
DCIP is still investigating the source of four explosions across the Gaza Strip that killed another 13 Palestinian children. Each explosion coincided with Israeli drones flying over the areas as well as the launches of rockets from Palestinian armed groups
Four children killed (plus three adults) from a rocket in front of a supermarket in Jabalya.
Five children killed from a rocket at the Fallujah Cemetery in Jabalya.
Three child siblings and their father killed in a rocket that hit their home in te Bureij camp.
One child killed and her sister injured from a rocket in Beit Hanoun. There is video of this out of control rocket corkscrewing to the ground and its massive explosion:


What about the other three (now four) children? They were either human shields or they were unfortunately killed when Israel targeted major terrorists.

One killed during the strike on Taysir al Jabari.
One killed when Israel killed southern PIJ leader Khaled Mansour in Rafah.
One killed when Israel apparently targeted a car in Jabalia (I'm still not sure if this was Israel or a PIJ rocket.)
One killed when Israel targeted two PIJ terrorists in Khan Younis.

This is not irresponsible. This is how wars are fought - do everything possible to avoid civilian casualties but civilians cannot shield legitimate military targets of great value.

Defence for Children Palestine, despite trying to spin these deaths as being from Israeli airstrikes, knows quite well they were killed by Islamic Jihad. And they are not defending those children.




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Wednesday, August 10, 2022

                                                                        


The footage of the Islamic Jihad rocket doubling back on Jabaliya was like something out of a Cecil B. DeMille movie. Except that it was real. The rocket begins its journey; its target, Israeli civilians. Then, all of a sudden, with a “whoosh,” the rocket reverses course, as if the hand of God itself were guiding it away from the Jewish people (or perhaps playing boomerang). In the background, we hear the Muezzin’s eerie call to prayer blaring from the loudspeakers. It seems a kind of judgment, a biblical moment—one the media does not want to own.


Columnist Daled Amos contends that Israel did a great job getting the truth of the Jabaliya story out to the media. As a result, he says, “Israel was able not only to present its case that it was not responsible, but also to get the media to present a balanced report that presented Israel's contention that the explosion was the result of a misfired rocket from Palestinian Islamic Jihad.”

Daled Amos is right on the mark. For a change, Israel got ahead of the propaganda machine. This time, the Jewish State was quick to supply verifiable facts and footage to show the truth of what had happened: An Islamic Jihad rocket, launched in the direction of Israel with the intention of murdering as many Jewish civilians as possible, misfired and murdered 7 Gaza residents, including 4 children. In other words, Islamic Jihad terrorists tried to kill Jews, but murdered their own, instead.


Daled Amos is also correct in stating that as a result of Israel’s speedy proactive response, the media presented a more balanced account. But perhaps balance was not what was needed here. When there are verifiable facts and footage, it’s not a case of he said/she said, but documenting what happened for posterity.

We know what happened on D-Day, at Pearl Harbor, in Gettysburg. Some things are just not in dispute. The rocket attack on Jabaliya is such an event, something that should be recorded as military history. Yet CNN, for example has the Palestinian Health Ministry saying one thing, and Israel saying another (emphasis added):

In one incident Saturday, four children were among seven people killed in an explosion in Jabaliya. The Palestinian Health Ministry initially said the blast was caused by an Israeli airstrike. Israel rejected the claim and said it was the result of errant rocket fire, and released a video showing what it said was the Islamic Jihad rocket sharply changing course in the air and hitting the building.

Instead of this balanced report, why not a factual report on what happened on August 6th? “Today in Gaza, an Islamic Jihad rocket misfired, killing seven people in Jabaliya, including 4 children.”

That would have been the unvarnished truth. But reporting the truth is apparently not a CNN value. CNN would rather hedge, presenting the story as a case of competing narratives, under the pretense of “balance.” Forced by facts to exonerate Israel, CNN instead chooses to leave things fuzzy, to leave the reader thinking, “Who knows what really happened? But it was probably that &*$@*%^ Israel, again.”

In other words, the balance is not balance, but a calculated lie, so that even if you know the facts, you begin to question them. The purpose of the lie, of course, is to minimize anything that makes Islamic Jihad look bad: “Yes, they’re terrorists, but they’re OUR terrorists.”

Why? Because Gaza is the darling of the wokerati, while Israel is the object of their hate. So minimize, minimize, and minimize the damage some more, and find a way to “balance” things out.



It’s not only CNN, of course. Daled Amos cited many similar reports, including this one from the NY Times (emphasis added):

Three children were also killed on Saturday, though it was not immediately clear whether they were hit by an Israeli strike or a misfired Palestinian rocket. The Israeli military said they were killed by a failed Islamic Jihad rocket launch.

Instead of reporting the story as is, the NY Times tells its readership that it’s not clear who killed the 7, Israel or the Arab IJ terrorists. But it IS clear. Today, everything is verifiable. People have phones. They love to record rocket attacks and share the clips on social. 

The Israeli military didn’t “say” it was a failed Islamic Jihad rocket launch. They proved it. But that’s not how the NY Times chose to report the story. Why exonerate Israel, when you can leave the story fuzzy around the edges, ripe for interpretation and as fodder for the anti-Israel propaganda machine?

The AP, as cited by Daled Amos, begins with the same “balanced” narrative (emphasis added):

The Israeli military said an errant rocket fired by Palestinian militants killed civilians late Saturday, including children, in the town of Jabaliya, in northern Gaza. The military said it investigated the incident and concluded ‘without a doubt’ that it was caused by a misfire on the part of Islamic Jihad. There was no official Palestinian comment on the incident.

This, however, turned out to be not ambiguous enough for the AP. So they did an about-face (much like that IJ rocket) in a subsequent report containing no allegations or reports of a misfire at all. Instead, the new report mentions an “Israeli offensive,” leaving the impression that Israel is somehow responsible for the Jabaliya dead (emphasis added):

Two other militants and five civilians also were killed in the attack, bringing the Palestinian death toll to 31 since the start of the Israeli offensive Friday. Among the dead were six children and four women. The Palestinian Health Ministry said more than 250 people were wounded since Friday.

It is easy to rationalize "balanced" reporting on Israel. One might reason that balance is a whole lot better than the out-and-out shameless lies of Al Jazeera:

But the lies of Al Jazeera are not worse, only different. Lies can be blatant or come disguised as “balance.” In the end, lies are lies.

Why would the media lie? In the case of Jabaliya, reporting the facts makes Israel out to be the good guy. As the media well knows, however, a bit of balance can go a long way toward making it seem otherwise. 



Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

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