Hamas in Gaza (merged thread)

[Steve Blair]

The BBC story is here.

They included a comment from Human Rights Watch that is interesting:

An expert working for the Human Rights Watch said the Palestinians' injuries were not consistent with a blast taking place beneath them.

"It has been suggested by some that the family was killed by a land mine, and this is patently not the case," Mark Garlasco said.

"All of the evidence is pointing to a 155mm shell as having killed and injured the Palestinians here on the beach," he said.

"My assessment [is] that it's likely that this was incoming artillery fire that landed on the beach and was fired by the Israelis from the north of Gaza."

If this is a Hamas IO, it's already turning out brilliantly.

[SWJED]

IDF Says it's Not Responsible for Gaza Beach Blast.

"The IDF is innocent," was the bottom line that came out of a press conference Tuesday night, during which Defense Minister Amir Peretz, Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz and other top officers presented the findings of an internal military investigation into Friday's explosion that killed seven Palestinians as they picnicked on a Gaza beach.

In a press conference at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, Peretz told reporters that following an extensive three-day investigation the IDF had collected sufficient evidence to prove that Friday's explosion was not caused by Israel. The evidence was being presented first and foremost to the Israeli people, Peretz emphasized, saying, "We owe it to ourselves to know that we did not cause these deaths."

"We have sufficient evidence which confirms our suspicion that the attempts to portray this incident as caused by Israel were wrong," Peretz said. "I know it is difficult to explain this, but the facts that have accumulated prove that Israel was not behind the incident."

In contrast to daily Palestinian rocket attacks against Israel, Peretz added, the IDF made great efforts to avoid harming innocent Palestinians. "In all IDF operations one of the issues that is taken into consideration and sometimes adds risk to ourselves is the need to not cause harm to innocent civilians," the defense minister said...