Thursday, January 29, 2009

That UN school that was bombed in Gaza?

Via Croydonian we have a rather interesting piece in the Canadian Globe and Mail. The bottom line? That story about the UN School that the Israeli's bombed in Palestine may not be quite as accurate as initial reports claimed.
Most people remember the headlines: Massacre Of Innocents As UN School Is Shelled; Israeli Strike Kills Dozens At UN School.

They heralded the tragic news of Jan. 6, when mortar shells fired by advancing Israeli forces killed 43 civilians in the Jabalya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. The victims, it was reported, had taken refuge inside the Ibn Rushd Preparatory School for Boys, a facility run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency....There was just one problem: The story, as etched in people's minds, was not quite accurate.

Physical evidence and interviews with several eyewitnesses, including a teacher who was in the schoolyard at the time of the shelling, make it clear: While a few people were injured from shrapnel landing inside the white-and-blue-walled UNRWA compound, no one in the compound was killed. The 43 people who died in the incident were all outside, on the street, where all three mortar shells landed.

Stories of one or more shells landing inside the schoolyard were inaccurate.

While the killing of 43 civilians on the street may itself be grounds for investigation, it falls short of the act of shooting into a schoolyard crowded with refuge-seekers.
Read further here.

7 comments:

Oldrightie said...

Sort of spin Labour and The BBC love. Who cares about facts?

Anonymous said...

Oh it was only 43 civilians just outside the school so that's ok then!

And the white phosphorus was just a fireworks display which went wrong I suppose?

When will you understand that two wrongs (Hamas and IDC) will never make a right? The only sensible and grown up position is to condemn the idiots on both side - and the help those caught up in the crossfire.

Alex said...

I seriously question your judgement. You say that Hamas were firing rockets from inside a school and Israel retaliated by killing 43 people outside the school, but not inside the school, so that's OK??

What's OK? None of it is OK, neither by Hamas, nor by Israel. readit again and think about it.

Anonymous said...

The first casualty of war etc., etc...

dizzy said...

Oh it was only 43 civilians just outside the school so that's ok then!

Did I say that?

I seriously question your judgement. You say that Hamas were firing rockets from inside a school and Israel retaliated by killing 43 people outside the school, but not inside the school, so that's OK??

I didn't say that, the newspaper said that.

Anonymous said...

Don't try to be reasonable Dizzy - ant Israeli commentators who havn't got the intestinal fortitude to put their names to their malice will never understand that the point was the LIES not the LIVES.

Anonymous said...

No one ever means "only 43 people" who died but when you have the Israelis who are attempting to target terrorists as best they can and you have Hamas who are trying to maximize the number of Palestinian deaths, then the numbers are important, significant in terms of assessing whether Israel over reacted. The crux of the argument is that Israel defended themselves disproportionately. What would have been a proportionate response? What should they have done.