Israel Admits Mistakes In Qana
Israel has issued the findings of an investigation into what happened at Qana. The report summery says that they did not know there were any civilians in the building. They maintain that they would not have hit the building if the had known that in advance (I believe that, incidentally). But there is a true shocker in the article. Human Rights Watch wants a full and complete impartial investigation into the incident - because the high initial casualty figures have turned out to be untrue.
Israeli planes attacked an apartment house in Qana in the early hours of Sunday. The house collapsed, and rescue workers pulled the bodies of civilians, most of them women and children, out of the rubble. An international outcry led Israel to call a suspension of its airstrikes in Lebanon for 48 hours and increased pressure for a cease-fire in the three-week-old offensive against Hezbollah.
In a statement summarizing the inquiry findings, the military said Israel did not know there were civilians in the building.
"Had the information indicated that civilians were present … the attack would not have been carried out," the statement said.
The bombing followed guidelines regarding attacking "suspicious structures" in villages where civilians have been warned to evacuate, the statement said, adding that Hezbollah forces "use civilian structures inside villages to store weaponry and hide in after launching rocket attacks."
The statement said more than 150 rockets have been launched from Qana and the area around it since July 12, when the current conflict erupted.
As a result of the incident, the statement said, the guidelines would be evaluated and updated.
The chief of staff of the Israeli military. Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, apologized for the loss of civilian life but charged that Hezbollah "uses civilians as human shields and intentionally operates from within civilian villages and infrastructure."
On Wednesday, Human Rights Watch questioned the death toll in the Qana attack. The international group listed the names of 28 known dead from the attack and said that 13 others were missing and might still be buried under the rubble. The discrepancy was attributed to an assumption that only nine of the people who took shelter in the basement of the building survived, but it emerged that at least 22 escaped, the group said.
Human Rights Watch called for an impartial international investigation of the incident.
Ha'aretz is reporting it this way:
Israel Defense Forces' inquiry on the bombing of a building in the south Lebanese village of Qana that killed 56 civilians admits a mistake but charges that Hezbollah guerrillas used civilians as shields for their rocket attacks, according to a statement released early Thursday.
Israel Air Force planes attacked an apartment house in Qana in the early hours of Sunday. The house collapsed, and rescue workers pulled the bodies of civilians, most of them women and children, out of the rubble. An international outcry led Israel to call a halt to its airstrikes in Lebanon for 48 hours and increased pressure on Israel to agree to a cease-fire in its three-week offensive against Hezbollah.
In a statement summarizing the inquiry report, the Israeli military said Israel did not know there were civilians in the building. "Had the information indicated that civilians were present … the attack would not have been carried out," the statement said.
Which appears to be much the same - likely relying heavily on wireservice reports. I still have a lot of questions about this incident and would like to see an investigation as well.
Other Links to this Post
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AGITPROP: Version 3.0, Featuring Blogenfreude — Thursday, 3 August , 2006 @ 9:23 am
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PartisanTimes.com — Thursday, 3 August , 2006 @ 12:15 pm
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The Real Ugly American.com » Blog Archive » Who is the better journalist? Morley or the Bloggers? — Thursday, 3 August , 2006 @ 1:27 pm
By Bill Franklin, Thursday, 3 August , 2006 @ 3:23 am
What about all those inconsistencies?!? Where’s the dust? The 8 hour gap in time?
Some other questions that need to be answered:
- How did Bush see the first plane hit the WTC, as he claimed when he said “I had seen this plane fly into the first building.”
- Who was behind the “Vigilant Guardian” exercises on 9/11 that coincedentally was simulating airplane hijacking?
And before you give me some right wing talking points, answer how authorities were able to detect this aircraft being off route so quickly, but couldn’t detect the 9/11 airliners: http://www.cnn.com/US/9910/26/wayward.jet.01/index.html
I smell a cover-up!
By skip, Thursday, 3 August , 2006 @ 7:25 am
Let’s see. At least one early account had 50,000 people dead in the attack on the twin towers. Since there were really only 3000 why not just forget about it? Only 28 dead in Qana? Forget about it. They are, after all, only Arabs.
I do have a question: when is the Israeli DEFENSE Force going to do some fighting in its own country?