Kana collapse was hours after attack

This is a follow up to Lawhawk's post from earlier today.

In the deadliest attack since Israel started its offensive against Hizbullah 19 days ago, 57 civilians - most of them children - were killed on Sunday in a building in the southern Lebanese village of Kafr Kana, apparently as a result of an IAF missile strike.

While the entire Israeli political echelon expressed regret for the results of the strike, Air Force Chief of Staff Brig.-Gen. Amir Eshel said Sunday night that the three-story building had been struck by the missiles a little after midnight and that it only collapsed seven hours later, at close to 7 a.m.

Eshel refrained from specifying what had caused the structure to collapse seven hours after it was hit, but senior IAF officers said Sunday night that the explosion could have been caused by an unexploded missile or by a Hizbullah-planted explosive device. (Emphasis supplied.)

Now this explanation makes more sense to me. As I previously wrote, Israel does not target civilians, and goes out of its way to avoid civilian casualties. In fact, Israel warned all residents of this village to vacate prior to their attacks.

A high-ranking IAF officer said the IDF had warned Kafr Kana residents to evacuate the village in anticipation of airstrikes on Katyusha launchers. The officer said the air force had been targeting the village for the past three days and that on Saturday night it struck 10 targets there. He said the building hit Sunday was chosen as a target after intelligence indicated that Hizbullah guerrillas were hiding inside, where Katyusha rockets and launchers were also hidden.

"We warned the residents that we would be attacking there," the high-ranking officer said. "We work under the assumption that the villages are empty and that whoever is there is affiliated with Hizbullah."

The IAF did attack targets in the village at 7 a.m. Sunday, Eshel said, but these buildings were 500 meters away from the building where the civilians were killed.

Combine this with Hizbullah’s penchant for operating out of civilian locals, and not responding to the incident until the media showed up, and I have to say, that although civilian deaths, especially children, are unfortunate, I think Israel was justified in its attach and took all reasonable precautions to minimize civilian casualties.