Monday, June 12, 2006
Good to see the IDF getting on this fast.
According to Channel 2, the findings, expected to be formally released on Tuesday, showed an inconsistency between the shrapnel found in the body of one of the wounded babies and the metal used in IDF artillery.
Moreover, the investigation noted the absence of a crater at the site of the explosion, as would be expected if an IDF shell had landed there.
The third observation casting doubt on the possibility of IDF shelling was the gap between the time when the army shot the artillery and when the commotion on the beach began. According to the probe's findings, several minutes past after the shelling, before the Palestinians on the beach reacted.
The leading theory currently entertained, suggested that an explosive charge, buried by Palestinians on the Gaza beach to prevent Israeli infiltration, was behind the explosion.
Throughout the whole investigation, army officials complained at the lack of Palestinian cooperation. Unconfirmed reports further suggested attempts by Palestinians to remove shrapnel from the bodies of the wounded, treated in Israeli hospitals, thus impeding the investigation.
Both the investigation's leading theory that an explosive charge, buried by Palestinians on the Gaza beach to prevent Israeli infiltration and the finding that there was an inconsistency between the shrapnel found in the body of one of the wounded babies and the metal used in IDF artillery suggest that an explosion occurred which in turn was reported to have lead to the deaths of seven members of the Ghalia family and shrapnel and blast injuries to the wounded now being treated in Israeli and Palestinian hospitals .
However, if those findings are to remain consistent with the finding that there was an: absence of a crater at the site of the explosion as would be expected if an IDF shell had landed there and presumably also as would be expected if a non IDF explosive had exploded there, are we not also compelled to conclude that the site where shrapnel from exploded munitions entered the body of at least two injured Palestinians - one of which was a wounded baby - could not have been the same site identified by Gazan eye-witnesses and reported by Palestinian stringers, to be the location where seven deaths and thirty shrapnel and blast related injuries occurred?
With no crater and no convincing evidence of an explosion at the site identified by Palestinians, but yet with seven dead people and thirty injured of which two had shrapnel which wasn't made in Israel taken from their bodies, I think the leading theory should be that the Palestinians who were killed and injured were not injured on the site identified by Palestinian spokespersons and witnesses.
Assuming that even if Abbas was to launch a formal investigation of his own into the killings and even if he announced that his investigation would preclude any cooperation with the IDF investigation, he would still be accused of and charged with 'collaboration', or at least with having gravely betrayed his people, by Palestinians, for whom the idea that providing physical evidence is the most convincing way to conclusively establish culpability, is not as important as not being dishonoured by being asked to go on hunting expiditions by those who can not even pretend to feel your grief, suffering, humiliation and anger.
Israel ought to be asking the Quartet, or at least the UN, US and UK why Abbas is not being asked to obtain and provide shrapnel and other physical evidence from the site of the explosion and from Palestinian medics and hospitals who received the dead and wounded, in order to confirm the allegation that IDF artillery was in fact responsible for the deaths and injuries.
Does anyone seriously think that this won't become another myth, like Jenin and Mohammed al-Durra?