Another day, another palestinian massacre story proven entirely false.
An Israel Defense Forces investigation into Monday’s incident in Gaza, which left a mother and her four children dead, confirmed Friday that the family was not hit by Israel Air Force fire, but rather by a detonation of weapons carried out by a nearby gunman who was targeted by an IAF missile.
The IDF released footage caught by an unmanned aerial vehicle, proving its claims. The gunman’s weapons exploded as a result of the residual blast, which in turn caused the ricochets which apparently hit the family.
The inquiry revolved around a report claiming that an IDF shell hit a house in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun, killing five members of the Abu Meatak family.
IDF officials noted that the missile fired at the gunman is considered accurate and with a small amount of explosives.
The IDF inquiry presents the following picture:
- At around 8 am, a cell of four terrorists was spotted firing at Givati troops operating in the Beit Hanoun area. IDF officials in the command room followed the cell, confirmed that they were terrorists carrying explosives, and for attempted to determine the place where they would be attacked by an IAF aircraft.
- The cell members were spotted moving 400 meters away from the forces. At 8:13 am, an aircraft fired at two of the cell members, hitting them. One of the terrorists was killed and his friend was wounded. The army continued to follow the injured terrorist, and about a munite later the aircraft fired another missile at him, identifying an accurate hit.
- Footage released by the IDF on Friday shows that civilians standing several meters away from the terrorist were not hurt. As the missile used to target him was accurate. The location selected by the IDF for targeting the second terrorist is close to a grape orchard, where not every civilian can be seen, and about three meters away from the gate of the Palestinian family’s home.
- Seven minutes after the second missile was fired, reports were received about civilians being hit, and several hours later it turned out that the family members were killed. The family was hit after the second missile was fired, and according to estimates, weapons carried by the terrorist led to greater damage. The house’s gate apparently flew at the family members, who were at the time outside the house, inside the grape orchard.
This was already foreshadowed in my first post on the subject, but now it has been confirmed by the investigation.
Now let’s see the mainstream media report these findings with the same speed and enthusiasm it reported Israel’s supposed blame.
Yeah, I’m not hopeful either.
Updates (Israel time):
5:20PM: Why hasn’t the IDF released this footage, so bloggers like myself can post it? I cannot find it even on the IDF website.
If you ask me, this is another example of the Israeli PR machine failing.
5:35PM: This is the best I can do for now (Jerusalem Post, via the IDF)
Saturday, 10:15PM: Looks like I was wrong on two counts:
