Back to the Beach

Human Rights Watch can't contradict the IDF investigation into the Gaza beach incident where a number of civilians were killed in an explosion. The IDF found that it could not have been caused by an artillery shell fired from any of its forces.

While sticking to its demand for the establishment of an independent inquiry into a blast on a Gaza beach 10 days ago that killed seven Palestinian civilians, the Human Rights Watch conceded Monday night for the first time since the incident that it could not contradict the IDF's exonerating findings.

On Monday, Maj.-Gen. Meir Klifi - head of the IDF inquiry commission that cleared the IDF of responsibility for the blast - met with Marc Garlasco, a military expert from the HRW who had last week claimed that the blast was caused by an IDF artillery shell. Following the three-hour meeting, described by both sides as cordial and pleasant, Garlasco praised the IDF's professional investigation into the blast, which he said was most likely caused by unexploded Israeli ordnance left laying on the beach, a possibility also raised by Klifi and his team.

"We came to an agreement with General Klifi that the most likely cause [of the blast] was unexploded Israeli ordinance," Garlasco told The Jerusalem Post following the meeting. While Klifi's team did a "competent job" to rule out the possibility that the blast was caused by artillery fire, there were still, Garlasco said, a number of pieces of evidence that the IDF commission did not take into consideration.

The main argument between Klifi and HRW surrounded the timeline of the blast, which the IDF said took between 16:57 and 15:10, at least 10 minutes after artillery fire in the area had stopped. HRW however disputes this claim and basing itself on Palestinian hospital documentation, claims that the explosion actually took place right around the time of the IDF artillery fire.

Meanwhile Monday, The Post learned that the IDF was currently inspecting a second piece of shrapnel doctors had retrieved from one of the Palestinians wounded in the blast and currently being treated at Soroka Hospital in Beersheba. A first piece of shrapnel, examined by the IDF as well as by an independent academic institute in Beersheba was found to not have come from a 155 mm shell, the type used in IDF artillery attacks on Kassam launch sites in the Gaza Strip. The second piece of shrapnel, sources said, was currently being examined in an IDF lab.

So whose ordnance killed those Palestinians? My hunch still remains that it was the Palestinians own weaponry that detonated in a crowd killing the group at the beach.

Adloyada has a tremendous posting on the subject, including a breakdown of Garlasco's bias against Israel and a history of snap judgments that all appear to hew against the US or Israel. Also adding to the mix is the possibility that the entire beach incident was staged:

German daily Sued Deutsche, said pictures taken by Zakaria Abu Irbad, 36, a cameramen with the Palestinian independent news agency Ramattan, contradict Palestinian claims that an IDF shell killed the Ghalia family and point to the possibility that the event was staged to hold Israel responsible. Irbad was the first journalist to arrive at the scene after the attack and Ramattan sold footage of Hadil weeping on the beach by her dead father to all major news broadcasters. The newspaper said in footage of the beach taken by an IDF drone at the time of the attack, five craters left by IDF artillery shells could be seen, but that 250 meters away people could also be seen. The paper said it is strange that although shells exploded 250 meters away from a beach site where Palestinian families congregated, no one was seen running away or panicking.

I think that the question of an international inquiry is a waste of time and will convince no one despite the results. As Meryl Yourish notes:

Unfortunately, our neighbors are intent on proving the opposite, and instead of peaceful co-existence we have a war on our hands. And if anyone has a hope that the Gaza beach tragedy is the last of its kind, that anyone is either seriously deluded or trying to delude.

Instead of wasting UN time and money on this investigation, Koffi Anan will do more good trying to explain this to our Gazan neighbors and to their supporters. No sham ceasefire will be enough, and while the steady rain of Qassams, border attacks and other attempts to kill more Jooz continue, the war will continue. And the tragic stories of the kind we are discussing here will happen again and again.

UPDATE:
Charles at LGF points out an interesting story. Apparently, Israeli doctors are now caring for one of the Palestinian victims who was hit by shrapnel from the explosive that caused the casualties on the beach. And those doctors noticed something rather strange:

Niham, who regained consciousness at the hospital on Tuesday but remains in serious condition, suffered serious damage to her abdomen and upper limbs, with cuts all over her body, as a result of the surgical intervention performed on her at Shifa Hospital in Gaza, the hospital said.

The Tel Aviv hospital added that no shrapnel was found in the woman’s body except for one piece that is not reachable by surgery and will have to be left there. The damage to her body was “without doubt” caused by shrapnel; Israeli authorities say the chances are “one in a billion” that she was hurt by an Israeli missile.

In most cases, some shrapnel remains in the victim’s body and stays there for the rest of his or her life, the hospital said.

The hospital stopped short of accusing Shifa’s doctors directly of removing shrapnel for no medical reason, but it did say that it had never received such a patient with all the reachable shrapnel removed.

“This is surprising and raises questions” about the care that Niham received in Shifa, the Sourasky spokeswoman said. Asked whether Sourasky surgeons had contacted Shifa doctors who treated the patient to ask the reason for the incisions to remove shrapnel, the spokeswoman said: “We are not in such close contact with Shifa. We received the medical report on the patient, and that’s all.”

Did the Palestinian doctors remove the shrapnel from this particular victim knowing that if Israeli doctors examined her they'd see that the shrapnel was not Israeli in origin? The facts certainly seem to lean in that direction. Further, it supports the contention that the Palestinians are doing everything possible to hide their complicity in the incident on the beach.

If the Palestinian doctors weren't willingly complicit in removing the shrapnel, I'd gather that they were probably coerced into doing all of that extra cutting to get out all the shrapnel that they possibly could - eliminating the incriminating evidence.