War Crimes? What War Crimes?

Mere Rhetoric didn't believe in mincing words about the Palestinian tactics in last week's siege at Beit Hanoun:

In the last 36 hours, Palestinian gunmen have committed the following war crimes (here):

(1) Occupied a place of worship and used it for military purposes
(2) Occupied a hospital and used it for military purposes
(3) Used civilian women as human shields in order to protect themselves and facilitate offensive and defensive military maneuvers
(4) Gotten one of their civilian human shields killed as they continued to trade fire with the IDF from within the mosque and from behind the women

Seems we got quite a different impression from reading The Guardian:

Israeli troops fire on women in mosque siege

· One killed, 10 hurt in march to free gunmen
· Beckett voices concern over civilian deaths

Palestinian women described yesterday how they were shot and injured in the face and the legs by Israeli troops as they led a protest march into the scene of the biggest military incursion into Gaza in months.

At least one woman was killed and 10 were injured as large crowds of women walked past tanks into the town of Beit Hanoun yesterday morning saying they wanted to help free a group of Palestinian gunmen holed up inside a mosque.

Elham Hamad, 48, said she left her house in Beit Hanoun at 5am yesterday with two of her daughters-in-law to join the march into the centre of the town. Her son Mazen, 30, like hundreds of other men from the town had been held by Israeli troops for questioning.

"There were about 30 women in our group, all in the main street. We were moving into the town and passing by the Israeli tanks. We carried two white flags. They didn't ask us to stop and then suddenly we saw them shooting at us," she said. "I was hit but there were no ambulances. We were calling for them but there was nothing." Her husband found a donkey cart and put the injured women on the back and led them out of the town to waiting ambulances. Mrs Hamad was hit on the forehead and in the left shoulder and was yesterday being treated at the al-Ouda hospital in Gaza.

Her daughter-in-law, Asma, 23, was in the bed next to her. She was hit just above her left ankle and suffered a broken leg. She heard the call to march on her radio early yesterday. "We wanted to see what had happened to the youngsters who were taken by the Israelis," she said. "There were tanks on the road in front of us but without telling us anything they started shooting at us." Other women on the street helped them into a nearby house, where they were briefly treated, until they could find their way out of the town.....

It makes it sound just like a spontaneous little sortie by a few curious women that turned into a "protest march" doesn't it? The "call to march" on the radio? There's just one paragraph towards the end of the article suggesting that "local radio" called the women out. Maybe some local variant on Woman's Hour? Just a variant on the Women's Institute? No war crimes there, then?

Now here's the view from The Daily Telegraph, by Tim Butcher, an old hand at delivering subtle and not so subtle anti-Israel bias, sometimes overlaid with a distinct disdain for things Jewish.

The Israeli army was accused of opening fire on crowds of unarmed, veiled women in Gaza yesterday, leaving two dead and a dozen injured.

Israel insisted that its soldiers had used only sniper fire to pick off Palestinian gunmen using the women as human shields to escape from a mosque where they had been trapped.

But an army spokesman said that an official investigation into the killings would be opened.

The Israeli version was rejected by witnesses and Palestinian victims who said that they had come under direct fire from heavy machine-guns mounted on Israeli tanks in the town of Beit Hanoun, in northern Gaza.

One of the women suffered such severe facial injuries that medical authorities had struggled to identify her.

"Look at my left foot," shrieked another, Asma Hamed, 23, from a bed at the Alawda Hospital.

"I was shot from a tank only a 100 metres away and the bullet broke the bones in my foot."

The Israeli army claimed for several hours that a news agency had video footage of a Palestinian gunman using women's dress to evade capture. This claim was later withdrawn.

However, Mrs Hamed said that she had seen some women carrying extra female clothes intended to allow the gunmen to evade capture by the Israelis.

While the exact details of the battle of Beit Hanoun are likely to remain foggy, it was clear that the incident will fuel Palestinian hatred of the Israeli armed forces.

The shootings happened on the third day of a major Israeli military operation codenamed Autumn Rains that was designed to neutralise Palestinian militants who fire Qassam rockets from the Beit Hanoun area into Israel.

Israeli special forces first entered the town in the early hours of Wednesday.

The only locals out and about at that hour were armed militants and at least six Palestinian gunmen and one Israeli soldier, a dog handler, died in that first skirmish.

By late Thursday the Israeli army believed dozens of armed gunmen were in the 700-year-old Nasser mosque in the town centre. Tanks surrounded the building and loudspeakers broadcast messages for the gunmen to surrender.

With the siege continuing overnight, local Palestinian radio called on women, both inside Beit Hanoun and outside, to march on the town centre to help the gunmen. This was code for acting as human shields to allow them to escape.

Around dawn yesterday several groups of women responded to the call. A group, including Mrs Hamed, ventured on to the streets only to be hit almost immediately by gunfire. Mrs Hamed was evacuated on a donkey cart.

Her sister-in-law Taghrid Hamad, 20, was hit in the leg and almost died from loss of blood. She was in intensive care last night in Shifa Hospital, the largest in Gaza. A much larger group of around 500 women, all veiled and unarmed, gathered from other towns in Gaza and tried to approach Beit Hanoun.

They are understood to have come under fire and two of them are believed to have been killed.

A local cameraman filming events was hit in the chest by a bullet and taken to hospital where his condition was described as critical.

The Israeli army said that as many as 3,000 women reached the mosque in a number of groups, allowing the gunmen to escape. By the time Israeli troops entered the building it was empty.

The Israeli army said that eight gunmen were spotted among the women and only after they opened fire was the order given for the troops to reply. "We did not use general fire, but sniper fire against eight identified targets," an Israeli spokesman said.........

With no immediate end to the Israeli occupation of Beit Hanoun in sight, Palestinian politicians were already describing the shooting at the women's march as a "war crime" and a "massacre".

Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, called on Israel to show restraint.

So that's another tale of innocent housewives summoned up by local radio...Oh, hang on a minute. What was that about human shields?

Here, issued by Yahoo News, derived from Associated Press and Hamas, is the reality of that "local radio" broadcast:

A source in Hamas confirmed that its armed wing had orchestrated what he called a "complex security operation" to secure the release of the besieged fighters.

The women and fighters they were protecting ran as far as Izbat Beit Hanun, an area northwest of the town not being occupied by Israeli army.

"Hundreds of us entered the mosque and surrounded the resistance fighters to protect them," said one of the women, 21-year-old Nidaa al-Radih.

One rescued fighter was triumphant. "We are free, we are free!" he shouted before running off to safety.

Strangely enough, the Guardian and Tim Butcher, usually so prompt in suggesting that Israeli bombardments constitute war crimes, do not even hint that what we have here are multiple war crimes of the type listed by Mere Rhetoric.

Now with the latest Israeli shelling tragedy on Beit Hanoun, we have The Guardian giving a Comment is Free slot to a Palestinian would-be public relations guru, who portrays the "march" of the women human shields as a heroic and spontaneous "demonstration" organized by the women themselves, eager to keep their menfolk safe at home:

Women and children in the city sent urgent calls for help through Gaza's radio stations. To these jobless women, losing their men meant breakdown in their households.

On Friday morning, scores of women marched through Beit Hanoun in a spontaneous rush to aid friends and loved ones after hearing their pleas. Unarmed, they were shot at by Israeli soldiers from their tanks; two women were left dead and others severely injured. These women were said to have been heading to a mosque to free armed men who took refuge there. Television footage and interviews with witnesses show these women posed no military threat, but they were treated as such by the Israeli army without warning.

I expect cynicism from Hamas. I still find myself surprised by it when it comes to The Guardian. This is the regrettable habit of years of misplaced trust, which I still have to overcome.

Comments

[Rob]

This obfuscation by the media is very odd, because the initial Reuters reporting made it quite clear that the women responded to a call from Hamas to come to the mosque to act as human shields. Hundreds obeyed the call and some were caught in the crossfire. It was Hamas' deliberate strategy of interposikng the women between themselves and the IDF that led to their deaths and injury. There is no question as to what actually happened.

[Huldah]

Why so surprised at the Guardian's Israel-hating take on recent events, Judy?

They've been espousing this line for years now, together with the rest of the left wing Jew-Haters.

Remember the pustulent fist decorated with Magen Davids which graced the recent Guardian 'reportage' of Israel defending herself against Iranian/Syrian aggression through its proxy Hezbollah?

The problem's not with lack of accurate information. The problem is the hatred of Israel fashionable with the radical left, and its mouthpiece, the Guardian.

[Joan]

The Israelis keep complaining that Hamas mitlnatis are using women and children as 'human shields'. Every time I hear that, I wonder: what if a gunman walked into a kindergarten class and took everyone there hostage? Does that mean the police would be justified in opening fire through the windows to take him out? Or maybe they could just toss a grenade in there, or even blow up the whole school for good measure?After all, we can't let some crazy gunman get away just because he's hiding behind a "human shield".