Ha’aretz reports on yesterday’s accidental killing of palestinian civilians.
An Israel Defense Forces inquiry committee, headed by Major General Meir Kalifi, is examining two main options for what caused an IDF shell to stray 500 meters off course to the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanun, killing 19 Palestinians, mostly women and children.The committee believes that the disaster was the result of either a technical problem or human error. The problem (or error) could have occurred in either the artillery battery’s radar or its firing computer, both of which are operated manually.
This does not change anything I wrote in yesterday’s post. If the terrorists were not operating anywhere near civilian neighborhoods, such a malfunction would not have killed civilians. After all, we are talking about the shell straying half a kilometer.
In any event, you cannot compare the IDF’s accidental killing of palestinian civilians with the terrorist’s deliberate targeting and killing of Israeli civilians.
