UN-Truth

Without comment, other than I told you so (here) , here is the first reportage sent out from Gaza — after being cleared by Israeli military censors, of course — via the Foreign Press Association (FPA) in Israel, one of whose members, working with Reuters, went into Gaza as an embedded reporter with the IDF today:

Reuters Print pool material (embed)

Lt-Col Erez, tank commander:

“There have been several attempts to use anti-armour
weaponry against us, in at least one case a long-range missile.

We have responded preemptively and forcefully. We also hit
anyone seen trying to observe our movements.”

***

Lt-Col Yehuda, battalion commander in Givati infantry
regiment:

“We came in very strong. Our doctrine is to take over our
assigned positions, purging any resistance, and then fanning out
as required, repeating the process.”

Q: How do you explain the heavy damage to the civilian
infrastructure?

“I know of a lot of damage that’s self-inflicted. We came
across several houses that were booby-trapped, either with
regular explosives, or by sealing the windows and doors and
leaving the cooking gas on.

“The idea was that when the IDF arrived - it’s standard
procedure is to fire at anything suspicious in the building -
this would set off the gas. In one case the building started
burning my we managed to clear out our men in time.”

Q: How many kills have you had?

“I would say 10 gunmen overall, including during one raid
deeper into Gaza city. Mostly the resistance has not been
significant. I think Hamas has already folded. A couple days ago
an armed squad popped up from a tunnel that was concealed by a
nearby building. We took them out with tank fire and a bulldozer.
Another time, a suicide bomber came in on a bicycle. We spotted
him in time. He ran off to a take cover in a building, presumably
to draw us in. We demolished the building on top of him with a bulldozer.”

Q: Are you under orders to count enemy kills?

“No. I don’t know of any war where we’ve been told to do
that. Anyone who’s armed, we kill. Civilians we let move out.
Sometimes our intelligence services confirm enemy deaths.”

Q: Any captures?

“We took a small number of captives but they turned out to
be innocents.”

***

Brig Eyal Eisenberg: Commander of the entire op.

“We are tightening the encirclement of the city (Gaza)”

Q: Is there a danger for your men if they remain static?

“We are not static. We are careful to be constantly on the
move.

Q: Are you disappointed by low turnout of enemy gunmen?

“I think that in these circumstances it is important to
preserve a sense of modesty. I’ll let the other side tell you how
well, or otherwise, they have been turning out to fight.”

***

Colour: During a tour by a small group of reporters, an
Israeli tank fired a heavy machine gun at a lookout structure on
the beach.

After the machine gun fire, man who was in the structure
disappeared from view and after dark the tank fired three shells
at a suspected five-man mortar crew at an orchard south of Gaza
City 300m from the tank.

The tank gunner said three of the crew appeared to have been
killed.

************************

NOW, THE FINISHED PRODUCT - THE REUTERS ARTICLE:

“The tactics so far suggest that Israel’s doctrine comes down to moving slowly but shooting readily”.

More Reuters Print pool material (embed)

Deep inside Gaza, Israeli troops eye hostile city

By Dan Williams

GAZA, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Perched on the third-floor balcony
of a commandeered Palestinian villa, Israeli Lieutenant-Colonel
Yehuda gazes over the Gaza Strip, his posture suggesting a
victor in repose rather than poised to press home an offensive.

“I think Hamas has already folded,” he says when asked to
sum up the resistance his troops encountered when they stormed
into the enclave last week as part of an ground, air and sea
campaign to counter rocket salvoes by the Islamist movement.

Apologising for a voice almost inaudibly hoarse, he says:
“It’s from shouting at my guys not to let themselves become
complacent. But things have been getting busier at night. That’s
when the snipers try to close in and get a shot.”

Under a dulcet winter sunset, it’s a still, sad vista.

To the north, the teeming city of Gaza, encircled by Israeli
forces and pounded by the air force as part of a campaign to
counter Palestinian rocket fire. To the west and east, tanks
have churned up swathes of farmland and crushed buildings.

Though Palestinians continue to launch their short-range
missiles sporadically into Israel, from this vantage point there
are few signs of life other than than the cautious criss-cross
of Israeli armour in the 5 km of farmland from border to beach.

Over Gaza’s nearby coastal highway, a decorative arch
carries a lone green Hamas flag. No cars travel under it now,
though the Israelis say there is civilian traffic during daily
three-hour truces enacted as part of a “humanitarian corridor”.

Having bisected the strip by straddling its main roads,
Israeli troops are probing ever-deeper into Gaza’s population
centres, trying to draw out Palestinian gunmen, while waiting
for the government to decide whether to order a full-on assault.

“We are tightening the encirclement of the city,” the
offensive’s commander, Brigadier Eyal Eisenberg, told a small
group of reporters brought in to observe the deployment. “We are
not static. We are careful to be constantly on the move.”

There has been disappointment in Israel that the initial
push had not led to fiercer clashes in which more damage could
have been inflicted on Hamas. Taking the fight into the cities,
however, could expose troops to a greater risk of ambush.

Military commanders say they are ready for a more congested
close-quarters battle. The tactics so far suggest that Israel’s
doctrine comes down to moving slowly but shooting readily.

Leading an armoured column to the beachfront, a tank crew
spots someone standing in an open cabana 1.3 km (half a mile)
away. The tank’s onboard heavy machinegun chatters and tracer
bullets wing over the structure. The figure disappears.

HOUSE TO HOUSE

“There have been several attempts to use anti-armour
weaponry against us, in at least one case a long-range missile,”
says Lieutenant-Colonel Erez, a tank commander, giving only his
first name, in line with standard military policy.

“We have responded preemptively and forcefully. We also hit
anyone seen trying to observe our movements.”

More than 900 Palestinians, many of them civilians, have
died in an Israeli offensive that has drawn international
condemnation for its humanitarian toll. Israel says Hamas
invites such carnage by fighting in populated areas.

“We came across several houses that were booby-trapped,
either with regular explosives, or by sealing the windows and
doors and leaving the cooking gas on,” Yehuda says.

The latter tactic shows the attentiveness of Palestinian
factions, who are seasoned by past confrontations and determined
to cause casualties that they might claim as a victory against
the Jewish state. Thirteen Israelis have died so far.

Yehuda says it is standard practice for Israeli troops to
enter suspicious buildings with bursts of shooting, to stave off
a doorway attack. Such gunfire is enough to ignite gas.

“In one case the building started burning, but we managed to
clear out our men in time,” Yehuda says.

He says troops also killed three gunmen who emerged from a
bunker and a suspected suicide bomber who approached on a
bicycle. Both times, they used bulldozers to bury the enemies.

Another concern for Israel has been the matrix of obstacles
– minefields, hidden gun-nests, rocket silos — prepared well
in advance by Hamas.

Tanks appear to have avoided roads in many cases, the deep
furrows of their tracks now ploughed across fields to the sea.

There, an expanse of white sand is unmarked apart from three
untended fishing boats. An Israeli colonel, Yigal, jokes with
his men about wanting to return one day for a long vacation.

But then it’s dark, and as the tank and armoured personnel
carrier crews switch to night-vision goggles they grow sombre.

Surging back across the wasteland, the lead tank stops as it
receives a report of a five-man Palestinian squad 300 metres
(yards) away, launching mortars at an Israeli position.

A frenzied exchange over the radio ensues, to ensure the
squad is indeed hostile. Approval comes in, and the tank fires
three shells. Three of the five were killed, the gunner says.

(Edited by Alastair Macdonald)

************************

UN-TRUTH questions: How does the “frenzied exchange of the radio”, reported in the last paragraph, ensure that the “squad” is indeed hostile? Were they talking to the “squad” to ask them directly? Or was it just a kind of guess, arrived at in an exchange involving only IDF personnel? Did the Reuters embed see the dead members of the “squad” afterwards? And, what happened to the two who were not killed?

Filed under: Gaza, International Humanitarian Law, Israel, Journalism and Journalists, Middle East Peace Process, Palestine & Palestinians