Meanwhile the killing continues…
This farming community buried the al-Athamnah family Thursday, after marching through muddy streets bearing the bodies of the dead aloft and reaffirming in angry chants its commitment to war with Israel.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians squeezed through narrow lanes here a day after Israeli artillery shells killed 20 civilians, all but three of them from the same family. The Israeli military announced Thursday that the bombardment of the neighborhood was the result of a "technical failure in the artillery radar system."
Among the dead were at least 7 children. The naqba continues.
I saw that on the news. Disgusting. Tehnical failure my x(
When I saw that on Democracy Now, I thought, how insulting to call that a technical failure. I was glad to see that there were Israelis protesting this nonsense outside Olmerts door.
tssss..
Ingrid
What important is that, even if it was a technical failure (and it looks like it was), it was still a war crime. When fired over several kilometers, artillery is inherently innaccurate – that is, if fired in the direction of a populated area, there will always be a significant risk of civilian casualties.
It has happened before. Earlier this year, despite opposition from IDF generals, the ‘safety range’ of artillery fire was reduced from 300 to 100 meters.
What’s more, it wasn’t a defensive strike. By the IDF’s own admission, the strike was against a ‘launch site’ from which missiles had been launched the previous day. It was not in response to an ongoing threat. Since firing artillery shells over several kilometers towards a civilian area is always going to be risky, it should only be used as a very last resort (i.e. in response to an ongoing attack). This wasn’t the case here.
Thus, Israel’s excuses that it didn’t intend to kill civilians are, in B’Tselem’s words, “meaningless”, and the strike on Beit Hanun was a war crime.
Just in the news: The US has vetoed criticism of Israel in the UN.
unbelievable
Surprise surprise!
Well, at least you can say they’re consistent with regards to Israel. No matter what Israel does, no matter how unjustified, the U.S. will always veto a condemnation.
I wrote about it here.
To our shame (but equally unsurprisingly), Britain was one of the abstainees.
The Axis of Weasel has spoken again…to shout down criticism of a war crime. Perhaps our efforts to contain the nuclear programs of Iran and N. Korea would come to some fruition if they were not accompanied by a big smelly load of hypocricy.