What is the neutral and objective way to report this?
Three Palestinian children were killed yesterday in Gaza by Israeli fire from the ground (not from the air).
UPDATE: An IDF probe later revealed that the children were playing tag. [See below]
The youngest might have been 9 years old, while the oldest might have been 12 (reports vary). The two boys, Mahmoud Ghazal and Yehyia Ghazal, were killed on the spot. Their cousin Sara Ghazal sustained grievous wounds, and died overnight in hospital.
The Israeli authorities say that they were standing around or nearby a Qassam rocket launcher. On Wednesday, they suggested that anybody who did so was a legitimate target.
These children will undoubtedly benefit from the UNICEF youth center’s that the UN is touting these days – hoping that the funding will continue to pour in …
Thursday morning, Kol Israel English news led with a story that the Israeli Defense Forces expressed “regret” at the deaths of these children, three cousins, all aged around ten years old.
The caption for this photo reads: “People bury the body of a Palestinian child, Yehya Abu Gazal, who was killed after Israeli soldiers fired at figures they spotted near rocket launchers, in northern Gaza August 29, 2007”.
However, the “regret” is a bit stiff and ungenerous. The Associated Press is reporting, in an article written by Ibrahim Barzak, that: “The Israeli army said it spotted figures handling rocket launchers in northern Gaza, and attacked them from the ground. Witnesses confirmed there were rocket launchers in the area. The Israeli military said it ‘wishes to express sorrow’ for the ‘use of teenagers in terror attacks’. The army in the past has accused militants of using children to collect rocket launchers after they are fired, but it did not say the children killed Wednesday were directly involved.
The AP story continues: “The area that was hit in Gaza is populated by civilians and is frequently used by Palestinian militants to launch rocket attacks against southern Israel. The army said 92 rockets and 118 mortars fell in Israel in the past month. The three dead were identified as 10-year-old Mahmoud Ghazal, 10-year-old Sara Ghazal and 12-year-old Yehiya Ghazal, Palestinian officials said. They were all cousins, officials said. ‘We heard a blast, followed by children screaming,’ said another relative, Wasfi Ghazal. ‘We rushed over and found the children bleeding’. ‘We are victims of the (Israeli) occupation and victims of the misconduct of fighters who have randomly chosen our area to target Israel’, Ghazal said … Many Palestinian civilians have been killed in past Israeli attacks aimed at militants. The most serious incident was Nov. 8, 2006, when 18 civilians, including eight children, were killed by Israeli shells. Israel announced a halt to shelling in Gaza after that … The deaths of the children came at a critical juncture in efforts to revive Mideast peacemaking.”
Haaretz’s Amos Harek wrote a few days later that: “The three Palestinian children killed in Gaza on Tuesday were only playing near rocket launchers targeted by Israeli troops, and were not connected with the terrorists, an army probe determined yesterday … [T]he probe, which was launched immediately after the incident, determined that the children were playing tag near the launchers, as revealed by army footage recording the incident.
The video reportedly shows the children – who appear as figures whose age cannot be determined – approaching the launchers and then moving back, in a way that could be seen as suggesting that they were loading the launchers with rockets.
The terrain did not allow for direct observation of the area, so the army had to rely on aerial photography. The unit that launched the missile at the children used this visual feed to direct their fire, army sources told Haaretz.
The video does show one of the figures to be a child, army sources said, but this happened so close to the moment of impact that the troops were unable to abort in time.
IDF troops near the Gaza Strip are under orders to fire at rocket launchers only when terrorists approach them. The launchers themselves are easily replaceable and are of little value to the terrorist organizations, so the IDF prefers to target the terrorists who are directing the firing”.
Read the Haaretz story here — with thanks to Daniel Levy’s blog.