Israel And Gaza: The UN School Massacre That Never Was
THE Israelis killed the 43 schoolchildren by bombing Ibn Rushd Preparatory School for Boys, run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Gaza. Fact. The Toronto Globe and Mail has been picking though the debris:
Physical evidence and interviews with several eyewitnesses, including a teacher who was in the schoolyard at the time of the shelling, make it clear: While a few people were injured from shrapnel landing inside the white-and-blue-walled UNRWA compound, no one in the compound was killed. The 43 people who died in the incident were all outside, on the street, where all three mortar shells landed….
A terrible loss of life. But the facts are not quite what the media reported at the time:
Massacre of innocents as UN school is shelled
Shells kill 42 at U.N. school: Gaza medics
Gaza’s darkest day: 40 die as Israel bombs ’safe haven’ UN school
Israel has shown the first signs of bowing to the international outcry over its 11-day onslaught of Gaza after some 40 Palestinians sheltering in a United Nations school were killed.
And now:
While a few people were injured from shrapnel landing inside the white-and-blue-walled UNRWA compound, no one in the compound was killed. The 43 people who died in the incident were all outside, on the street, where all three mortar shells landed....The teacher, who refused to give his name because he said UNRWA had told the staff not to talk to the news media, was adamant: ‘Inside [the compound] there were 12 injured, but there were no dead. Three of my students were killed,’ he said. ‘But they were all outside.’ Hazem Balousha, who runs an auto-body shop across the road from the UNRWA school, was down the street, just out of range of the shrapnel, when the three shells hit. He showed a reporter where they landed: one to the right of his shop, one to the left, and one right in front. ‘There were only three,’ he said. ‘They were all out here on the road.’
John Ging, UNRWA’s operations director in Gaza explains:
The Israelis are the ones, [Ging] said, who got everyone thinking the deaths occurred inside the school. ‘Look at my statements,’ he said. ‘I never said anyone was killed in the school. Our officials never made any such allegation.’
Or as he said at the time:
Speaking from Shifa Hospital in Gaza City as the bodies were being brought in that night, an emotional Mr. Ging did say: “Those in the school were all families seeking refuge. … There’s nowhere safe in Gaza.”
Do you see?
The UN reported the goings on at a press conference:
Decrying mounting civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip since Israel launched its military offensive there some 11 days ago, the head of United Nations relief operations in the enclave today demanded an independent investigation into a spate of overnight and early-morning air strikes on several clearly marked schools… ‘It’s quite a horrific scene here today,’ said John Ging… In addition to the 30 people killed, 55 others had been injured by three Israeli artillery shells landing on the perimeter of a United Nations school in the Jabaliya refugee camp, where civilians had fled seeking refuge from the ongoing violence…Emphasizing that all United Nations schools in Gaza were clearly marked, he said they flew the Organization’s flag and Israel had long been provided with the GPS coordinates of all its installations in the area. ‘So the people in Gaza feel that nowhere is safe…’ [my emphasis]
And why did the Israelis shoot?
…a group of militants fired mortars from a street near the school, then fled into a crowd of people in the streets. Israel then opened fire. The residents, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared for their safety, said the Abu Askar brothers were known low-level Hamas militants.
As said, this was a huge waste of life. But the accusations of bloodlust should not be confined to the Israelis and Hamas - the media loves as good massacre.
And anyone sensible can make of it what they will. But what does it say about the old media..?
And is there a blogger in Gaza who knows?
Posted: 30th, January 2009 | In: Key Posts, Media Comments (19) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
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February 4th, 2009 at 9:02 am
[...] Join the debate Posted at 9:02 am by Paul Sorene [...]
February 4th, 2009 at 3:57 am
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/01/2009169564177230.html
You right wingers are depraved. Ging never said they were in the school buildings, he said on day one they were in the yard of the school.
It was israel who said that “terrorists” fired from the school and that was completely untrue.
February 3rd, 2009 at 7:13 pm
Percy Stilton: I hope that you will be right but for me it’s is the same pseudo-liberal naivity than in the WWII: if we don’t face with the problem maybe there will be no problem. That’s utterly wrong. Europe let Hitler gain power in fear of facing the problem and when it was already inevitable to face with it, it was way worse than before.
According to polls in the vast majority of British mosques there are hatred-speeches, selling racist books, and not least the money for the Mumbay terrorist attack was collected in British mosques. But no, there is no danger of muslim fanatics…
About the article:
It’s the same as in 2002 Jenin. The media reported about 1500 innocent palestinian’s death during Israel’s operation making scandals everywhere. Later the investigations showed there were only 54 casaulties from whom 45 were militants but then nobody was interested anymore, the anti-Israeli media campaign had its effect. Now the same.
According to Corriere della Sera, there were only 500-600 victims, mainly 17-23 year-old Hamas members. It also mentions Hamas methods to increase civil casaulties which are usually not mentioned in western “liberal” media: civilians confined in houses from where Hamas militants opened fire on Israeli troops; Hamas terrorists used Ambulances and forced the drivers and the hospitals workers to take off their uniforms, so the militants could assimilate among them; used children in millitary actions, like sending ammo with them, but there are also report on Hamas sending a child into gunfire to recuperate fallen militant’s gun. Hamas booby trapped homes and a zoo near a hospital.
In BBC Former British Army Colonel Richard Kemp said in an interview: “I don’t think that there has ever been a time in the history of warfare when any army has made more efforts to reduce civilian casualties and deaths of innocent people than the IDF is doing today in Gaza” .
All this usually is not mentioned in most of the world media they just show horrible pictures and reports published by palestins without any checking its truth. And it was not one time that this reports/pictures/videos turned out to be faked afterward (making this faking industry gain the name Pallywood)
There is a terrorist war and a media war against Israel. The media war’s goal is to legalize terrorism. The UN and the western so-called liberal media is supporting this media war on Israel thus support terrorism. Thinking that if they collaborate now they won’t be the next. The same mistake as in the WWII.
February 2nd, 2009 at 9:58 am
….and if I were a Jew, living here in the U.K., I have far more things to fear than muslim fanatics.
February 2nd, 2009 at 9:50 am
…and certainly not on Anokrak…:-)
February 2nd, 2009 at 9:49 am
Dhimmi…you had my attention until you started spreading mis-information & fear of Sharia law & liberalism in the U.K.
I can understand your despair & disappointment at the world media prejudicing peoples opinions on Israel & jews in general…. I even empathise with, and share, your fears for a fair & peaceful future for all people….and I defend your right to self defense….but Sharia law & peoples opinions are not at fault here….at least not in the U.K.
February 2nd, 2009 at 1:55 am
Leave it to the dhimmi UN to once again blame everything on Israel and come to the defense of the Hamas terrorists!
Will the west wake up before it is too late?
It does not look like it at this point.
And just read some of the comments of apologists on here who could not bring themselves to ever criticize Hamas for anything and could not pass up a chance to make up stories about the inhumanity of Israel and then criticize Israel for the false stories that the apologists themselves made up!
Liberals, you will be the first to suffer when Sharia takes over in your country!
February 1st, 2009 at 9:58 pm
Oh, I wasn’t being bellicose, merely pointing out that the Globe and Mail appears to think its readers are ill-informed idiots, there to be exploited. Admittedly much of the media is under the same impression…
February 1st, 2009 at 8:11 pm
I see chenier likes shooting off fireworks too… chenier….be careful you don’t get burnt.
I have been beaten & banned by Anolrak in the past for being too belicose….and it was not a pleasant experience…especially if agw gets his fangs into you.
February 1st, 2009 at 12:03 pm
…though in recognition of their chutzpah in pretending to be investigative reporters, when instead they were stealing a 23 day old AP report, I think Anorka should set up an award for the laziest and most dishonest article of 2009. The Anorak Globe and Mail Award may well, in years to come, stand alongside the Pullitzer…
January 31st, 2009 at 11:44 pm
I’m pretty sure that, even at the present extortionate cost of fireworks, they don’t include phosphorous. And I’m also sure that the report cited last in Anorka’s piece is dated 6th January, and that it specifically states that:
“Many people apparently stepped outside the shelter to get some air, thinking an area around a school was safe”.
The article in the Globe and Mail is dated 29th January, which must make it a record in terms of ‘picking over the debris’. It only took their reporters 23 days to read the AP report published on the 6th January, which includes all of the information in the Globe and Mail article.
Not exactly what could be described as a scoop…
January 31st, 2009 at 10:48 am
phosphorous shells?… I thought they were fireworks.
January 30th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
The first casualty of war is the truth, yet again.
Now what about those phosphorous shells?
January 30th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Sadly propoganda has always been a major weapon of war.
January 30th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
I agree with you there Anorak - the media is responsible for a lot of the hysteria around these days and seems to revel in both conflict and doom and gloom stories alike….
January 30th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
…personally I would have thought the final landing place of the bombs was more a matter of “luck” than judgement, but there we go, what do I know…??
what about “intention to kill”…? the bombs surely can’t have been launched with a view to not killing a single person…..? why were they targeting the UN school in the first place….?
it just highlights the fact that the UN is a castrated political white elephant and that nothing is going to make either side see sense, short of complete obliteration of one or other of them…
January 30th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Only a nutcase would say it’s fine people die or that war is a good thing. The point here is that the media story was Israel bombs school. What image does that create? The shcoker is that with death too easily found and suffering not too hard to spot, sections of the media should look for sensation and further crank up the hatred…
January 30th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
so let me get this straight - it’s a GOOD thing that the bombs didn’t actually fall inside the school and it’s OK that they fell outside the school walls - so presumably it’s NOT OK that 43 children might have died in the school but it IS OK by default that 43 people got blown to bits because they were only outside it…??????
…I give up…
January 30th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
semantics!
Inside outside compound, it does not alter the fact that so many innocent peoples lives were snuffed out by a brutal fanatical force as the IDA.