Chicago
10-22-2003, 01:47 PM
After a Deadly Attack, Arab Rage and Israeli Videotape
By JAMES BENNET
USEIRAT REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip, Oct. 21 — It is not unusual for Israelis and Palestinians to have opposing, vivid versions of reality.
But it is unusual for both sides to display the kind of concrete, if conflicting, evidence that they presented Tuesday for the violence that convulsed the main street here on Monday night.
The Palestinians had their grief and their rage, their seven dead and their many wounded. The Israeli Air Force had its videotape.
Palestinian witness after Palestinian witness told the same story: an Israeli rocket struck near a car; then, after two, three or perhaps five minutes passed, a second rocket hit near the same spot.
By then, according to this version, a crowd had gathered. Dr. Zain al-Abedin Shaheen, 29, had had time to run down the street from his clinic to help the wounded; Muhammad Baroud, 12, had had time to dash out of his house. Both, with others, died in the second blast, Palestinians here said.
"They are killers," Muhammad's father, Ziad, 42, said of the Israelis. Having been sent by his wife to retrieve his son after the first blast, Mr. Baroud was wounded in his right knee, left hip, left wrist and neck by shrapnel from what he said was the second rocket.
Dozens were reported wounded, and sirens wailed into the night on Monday as ambulances rushed the casualties north to Gaza City.
Yet, after the missile strike and four other air attacks in Gaza on Monday prompted unusual criticism from within Israel, the air force took the rare step on Tuesday of showing reporters parts of a videotape it said had been taken by a drone flying above the street. The tape presented a very different scene.
The black-and-white images, which the drone transmitted live to commanders directing the helicopter crew that fired the missiles, showed a first missile striking the hood of a car traveling an empty street.
The car, which Israel said contained Hamas militants, continued for about 50 yards until it appeared to bump a curb. Then it backed up almost to its original spot. A single person appeared to be approaching when the car was destroyed in a direct hit by a second missile. The strikes were a minute apart.
It was at least 90 seconds after the second blast that dozens of people were seen leaving their houses to surround the wreckage. Moments later, the video presentation halted. A senior air force officer acknowledged that there was more tape but declined to show it, saying there was nothing more of interest to see.
"We would not allow any munition to be launched on a massive gathering of people," the officer said. "To fire into a crowd is not professional, it is not ethical and it's not moral."
Palestinian hospital officials reported on Monday night that eight people had been killed here. But seven bodies, including that of Muhammad, who was wrapped tight as a mummy in a green Hamas flag, were carried Tuesday by a chanting crowd of thousands through the missile-pitted street, past a blocklong "condolence tent" set up for the grieving families.
Inside the houses, weeping women mourned separately. Outside, gunmen fired semiautomatic rifles into the air. Against the cinder-block walls, masked Hamas militants armed with hatchets spray-painted tributes to the dead, claiming them as martyrs and heaping them onto their pile of grievances.
Hamas vowed to retaliate.
Alex Fishman, perhaps Israel's foremost military journalist, wondered Tuesday in the pages of the largest daily newspaper, Yediot Ahronot, what "red lines" Israel still imposed on itself. "How long can we hurt innocent civilians?" he asked. "Is it conceivable that somebody on our side has decided that all of Palestinian society is the target?"
He also asked if the military method used Monday "actually intensifies and broadens the circles of hatred for generations." He called this a "war without questions," in which any Israeli who questioned such military tactics was branded a traitor.
Israeli military officers say it is the militants who endanger Palestinian civilians by hiding among them, preparing their suicide bombings and rocket attacks. "There is no neat and clean way to fight terrorism that is harbored in urban areas," the senior air force officer said.
He said both missiles used Monday night carried only a "few" pounds of explosives, which he said should not be able to spray shrapnel more than five or six yards in any direction.
The videotape showed a much larger explosion during the second missile strike. The officer speculated that there might have been explosives in the car.
Of the five Israeli attacks on Monday, three were against two buildings in Gaza City that Israel said served as factories and warehouses for Hamas munitions.
In a fourth strike, Israel killed two Hamas members with a rocket fired at their car in Gaza City. The driver of the following car was also killed. Hospital officials reported a total of 30 people wounded in those four strikes.
The Israeli bombardment came after Hamas militants launched eight crude rockets over Gaza's fenced boundary on Sunday. The rockets did not cause casualties.
The Israeli action here was of a different nature. According to the Israeli Army, soldiers spotted militants trying to cross Gaza's fence. It said the soldiers opened fire, killing two men on the spot, while others escaped in a car.
It was that getaway car, the army said, that the helicopter gunships hunted down here. Two Hamas men died in the car, the army said.
Salah Muhammad Hamdan, a 50-year-old teacher, said he was walking home with his wife when he saw the first missile hit just in front of the car about 150 yards away.
Several people were wounded, he said, but though they cried to him for help he concentrated on hurrying himself and his wife home. Then, after about two minutes, a second missile hit, he said, wounding himself and his wife. "I'm not a fighter; I'm a peaceful man," he said, as he lay in a hospital bed in Gaza City. "Why did they hit us?"
The videotape did not show any wounded people lying in the street after the first missile struck, or any couple hurrying along the sidewalk.
By JAMES BENNET
USEIRAT REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip, Oct. 21 — It is not unusual for Israelis and Palestinians to have opposing, vivid versions of reality.
But it is unusual for both sides to display the kind of concrete, if conflicting, evidence that they presented Tuesday for the violence that convulsed the main street here on Monday night.
The Palestinians had their grief and their rage, their seven dead and their many wounded. The Israeli Air Force had its videotape.
Palestinian witness after Palestinian witness told the same story: an Israeli rocket struck near a car; then, after two, three or perhaps five minutes passed, a second rocket hit near the same spot.
By then, according to this version, a crowd had gathered. Dr. Zain al-Abedin Shaheen, 29, had had time to run down the street from his clinic to help the wounded; Muhammad Baroud, 12, had had time to dash out of his house. Both, with others, died in the second blast, Palestinians here said.
"They are killers," Muhammad's father, Ziad, 42, said of the Israelis. Having been sent by his wife to retrieve his son after the first blast, Mr. Baroud was wounded in his right knee, left hip, left wrist and neck by shrapnel from what he said was the second rocket.
Dozens were reported wounded, and sirens wailed into the night on Monday as ambulances rushed the casualties north to Gaza City.
Yet, after the missile strike and four other air attacks in Gaza on Monday prompted unusual criticism from within Israel, the air force took the rare step on Tuesday of showing reporters parts of a videotape it said had been taken by a drone flying above the street. The tape presented a very different scene.
The black-and-white images, which the drone transmitted live to commanders directing the helicopter crew that fired the missiles, showed a first missile striking the hood of a car traveling an empty street.
The car, which Israel said contained Hamas militants, continued for about 50 yards until it appeared to bump a curb. Then it backed up almost to its original spot. A single person appeared to be approaching when the car was destroyed in a direct hit by a second missile. The strikes were a minute apart.
It was at least 90 seconds after the second blast that dozens of people were seen leaving their houses to surround the wreckage. Moments later, the video presentation halted. A senior air force officer acknowledged that there was more tape but declined to show it, saying there was nothing more of interest to see.
"We would not allow any munition to be launched on a massive gathering of people," the officer said. "To fire into a crowd is not professional, it is not ethical and it's not moral."
Palestinian hospital officials reported on Monday night that eight people had been killed here. But seven bodies, including that of Muhammad, who was wrapped tight as a mummy in a green Hamas flag, were carried Tuesday by a chanting crowd of thousands through the missile-pitted street, past a blocklong "condolence tent" set up for the grieving families.
Inside the houses, weeping women mourned separately. Outside, gunmen fired semiautomatic rifles into the air. Against the cinder-block walls, masked Hamas militants armed with hatchets spray-painted tributes to the dead, claiming them as martyrs and heaping them onto their pile of grievances.
Hamas vowed to retaliate.
Alex Fishman, perhaps Israel's foremost military journalist, wondered Tuesday in the pages of the largest daily newspaper, Yediot Ahronot, what "red lines" Israel still imposed on itself. "How long can we hurt innocent civilians?" he asked. "Is it conceivable that somebody on our side has decided that all of Palestinian society is the target?"
He also asked if the military method used Monday "actually intensifies and broadens the circles of hatred for generations." He called this a "war without questions," in which any Israeli who questioned such military tactics was branded a traitor.
Israeli military officers say it is the militants who endanger Palestinian civilians by hiding among them, preparing their suicide bombings and rocket attacks. "There is no neat and clean way to fight terrorism that is harbored in urban areas," the senior air force officer said.
He said both missiles used Monday night carried only a "few" pounds of explosives, which he said should not be able to spray shrapnel more than five or six yards in any direction.
The videotape showed a much larger explosion during the second missile strike. The officer speculated that there might have been explosives in the car.
Of the five Israeli attacks on Monday, three were against two buildings in Gaza City that Israel said served as factories and warehouses for Hamas munitions.
In a fourth strike, Israel killed two Hamas members with a rocket fired at their car in Gaza City. The driver of the following car was also killed. Hospital officials reported a total of 30 people wounded in those four strikes.
The Israeli bombardment came after Hamas militants launched eight crude rockets over Gaza's fenced boundary on Sunday. The rockets did not cause casualties.
The Israeli action here was of a different nature. According to the Israeli Army, soldiers spotted militants trying to cross Gaza's fence. It said the soldiers opened fire, killing two men on the spot, while others escaped in a car.
It was that getaway car, the army said, that the helicopter gunships hunted down here. Two Hamas men died in the car, the army said.
Salah Muhammad Hamdan, a 50-year-old teacher, said he was walking home with his wife when he saw the first missile hit just in front of the car about 150 yards away.
Several people were wounded, he said, but though they cried to him for help he concentrated on hurrying himself and his wife home. Then, after about two minutes, a second missile hit, he said, wounding himself and his wife. "I'm not a fighter; I'm a peaceful man," he said, as he lay in a hospital bed in Gaza City. "Why did they hit us?"
The videotape did not show any wounded people lying in the street after the first missile struck, or any couple hurrying along the sidewalk.