So Called Beach Shelling... false

[mAdMaLuDaWg]

From the CNN link

The explosion on a Gaza beach that killed seven people last Friday was caused by explosives planted there by Palestinian militants, not artillery fire from an Israeli navy gunboat, Israeli military sources said Tuesday.

However, in Gaza, the group Human Rights Watch said the evidence it has been able to gather suggests that a 155 mm artillery shell, like the type used by the Israeli military, was responsible.

Regardless of who caused it, a family has been killed and a survivor, a little girl, has been traumatized having lost her family

 

[Doboji]

Originally posted by: Czar

Originally posted by: EagleKeeper
He rules out that is was a Naval shelling, yet that is what Israel did from gunboats.

Therefore where did the 155mm shells come from?

ermm.. the M109 howitzers hamas has in the area ofcorse:roll:

Well typically IEDs are a combination of ordinance, often including such things as unused artillery shells....

One thing HRW and Israel agree on... the blasts were not originated at sea.

-Max

 

[Lazy8s]

Originally posted by: Doboji

Originally posted by: broon
I heard on the radio this morning that there were no other mines on the beach, that they can't account for one of the six shells, and that shrapnal matches that of a shell.

I'm not taking sides...just offering another side that the news is reporting.

can you provide some kind of a source? What radio station were you listening to?

-Max

NY times. An independant human rights group (don't remember the name) says they can almost certainly prove it was Israel, plus Israel admits one shell missed the target....not that any of this matters since they killed 8 civilians this with a second rocket after the first rocket blew up their military target...

EDIT: here's the link
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/14/world...9a600af&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss


Human Rights Watch is the organization. They partially base their findings after removing a piece of shrapnel from a victim with "125mm" stamped on it.....the size shells Israel was firing.

 

[EagleKeeper]

So we have Hamas stating one thing, Israel saying a second and two different statements from Human Rights Watch all stating conflicting information.

Did the Humand Rights see the evidence at the surgery or were they shown something after the fact and told that this was such?

With everyone's biases and desire to twist the facts; the truth will never be known.

The consequences and triggers are well known though.

 

[BaliBabyDoc]

Uh you must have missed a memo.

The conflicting reports came from Israel and the denial came from someone that had NO firsthand knowledge of the site. The HRW report came from the site and I only heard one account . . . saying it looked like Israeli ordnance (possibly old ordnance).

Israeli army concedes old . .

The military conceded old Israeli ordnance could have been responsible for the death of eight Palestinians at a beach picnic in the Gaza Strip, hours after absolving itself of any blame.

Yep, that's Israel vs Israel.

Klifi's comments came after he appeared at a news conference late Tuesday along with chief of staff General Dan Halutz who declared "we do not bear responsibility" for the deaths on the beach in northern Gaza.

Defence Minister Amir Peretz also declared that "we have enough evidence" that "the attempt to present this as an Israeli incident is simply untrue."

However their claims were immediately disputed by the New York-based Human Rights Watch which carried out its own investigation at the scene of the blast, unlike Israel.

"It is my contention that the most likely scenario is that Israeli shelling hit the area," said Human Rights Watch's military analyst Marc Garlasco.

Israeli military sources have suggested that the blast was the result of a Palestinian mine but Garlasco, a former Pentagon advisor, said "this is patently not the case."

Political hacks (Rumsfeld) gave the rapid response, "nope, definitely not . . . impossible."

 

[EagleKeeper]

Old ordnance does not equal shelling.

The HRW stated that it was a 155mm.

The gunboats could not launch a 155mm shell.

Therefore the explosion happened for some other reason.

The PA, Hamas and others are quick to pulling the trigger blame on the incident last week, yet the facts as being presented by both sides seem to clearly absolve the Naval incident.

 

[Czar]

did you miss this part

Mr Garlasco said that most of the serious injuries of the victims in the Gaza hospitals that he had visited were to the torsos and heads, which were inconsistent with a land mine or of a bomb embedded in the sand. "If this had been a landmine I would have expected to see serious leg injuries," he said. Mr Garlasco said that while he could not rule out the theoretical possibility that Palestinian militants had rigged up an unexploded 155mm shell to make an explosive device of their own, that too would have normally produced many more severe leg injuries.

and this part

Mr Garlasco who accompanied a small group of journalists to the Beit Lahia beach, pointed to three separate craters, each covered in a whitish powder, which he said were fresh, one of which was at the spot where witnesses agree the fatal blast occurred, and the two others separated it from it by about 120 and 250 yards. Mr Garlasco added: "It would be a really ridiculous coincidence if there is active shelling and then suddenly an IED [improvised explosive device] goes off."

 

[noto12ious]

U.S.-trained expert says shell was Israeli

 

[CaptnKirk]

Originally posted by: Czar

"It would be a really ridiculous coincidence if there is active shelling and then suddenly an IED [improvised explosive device] goes off."

We used to throw harrasment fire willy-nilly around in the Central Hilands of 'Nam, set with extreamly long timed delay fuses
enabled to detonate in 90 - 120 days with the intent that the enemy would salvage the warhead, take it into his bunker
to use as a weapon against us, and take the chance that we would get lucky enough to take out one of their catche areas.

Sometimes it worked.

 

[EagleKeeper]

I am not absolving Israel of the possiblity of it being their ordnance.

I am stating that all evidence provided by both sides show that it could not have come from the 8 shells fired from the gunboats.

And that is the excuse that the anti-Israeli faction is using as a justification for Hamas's justification for continuing the attacks.

Hamas never stopped attacking Israel; now they just have a public sympathy incident on their record.

 

[Czar]

Originally posted by: EagleKeeper
I am not absolving Israel of the possiblity of it being their ordnance.

I am stating that all evidence provided by both sides show that it could not have come from the 8 shells fired from the gunboats.

And that is the excuse that the anti-Israeli faction is using as a justification for Hamas's justification for continuing the attacks.

Hamas never stopped attacking Israel; now they just have a public sympathy incident on their record.

that is true, it couldnt have come from the boats, but with all the evidence we have we can rule out the palestinians, so that leaves israel and who?

they didnt stop? how many attacks from hamas?
and how many from isreal?

 

[EagleKeeper]

Originally posted by: Czar

Originally posted by: EagleKeeper
I am not absolving Israel of the possiblity of it being their ordnance.

I am stating that all evidence provided by both sides show that it could not have come from the 8 shells fired from the gunboats.

And that is the excuse that the anti-Israeli faction is using as a justification for Hamas's justification for continuing the attacks.

Hamas never stopped attacking Israel; now they just have a public sympathy incident on their record.

that is true, it couldnt have come from the boats, but with all the evidence we have we can rule out the palestinians, so that leaves israel and who?

they didnt stop? how many attacks from hamas?
and how many from isreal?

The Palestinians have not accused Israel of any other type of attack during that time frame.

So if we look at the situation of the explosion previous ordnance; then it could be
1) a deliberate time-delay (as indicated by Kirk) (probably unlikely due to the location)
2) an unstable round that let go due to some vibration caused by the shelling
3) an unstable round that was triggered by a person on the beach
4) an anti-Israeli munitions manufactured/modified by an Arab group that meets the same critera of #2,3 or was deliberately set off to trigger an incident

The bigger issue is that some of the HRW "experts" state that it could not have been ground exploded because of the pattern of injuries, yet all evidence presented by both sides exonerate the naval ships.

A 155mm can not be a "Bouncing Betty"; therefore the jigsaw puzzle being currently presented is either missing some critical parts or is actually made up of multiple puzzles

 

[Czar]

EagleKeeper,
"The Palestinians have not accused Israel of any other type of attack during that time frame. "
any other type?

"So if we look at the situation of the explosion previous ordnance; then it could be
1) a deliberate time-delay (as indicated by Kirk) (probably unlikely due to the location)
2) an unstable round that let go due to some vibration caused by the shelling
3) an unstable round that was triggered by a person on the beach
4) an anti-Israeli munitions manufactured/modified by an Arab group that meets the same critera of #2,3 or was deliberately set off to trigger an incident "

everything points to it not being burried in the sand
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5079464.stm

"Mark Garlasco, working for the US-based Human Rights Watch group, said victims' injuries were not consistent with explosives blowing up in the sand beneath them.

"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.""

"The bigger issue is that some of the HRW "experts" state that it could not have been ground exploded because of the pattern of injuries, yet all evidence presented by both sides exonerate the naval ships. "

Ahemm, "expert"? look at his credentials, "Marc Garlasco, who worked in war zones including Iraq and Kosovo during his seven-year stint in the US Department of Defence"
and http://www.motherjones.com/radio/2005/10/garlasco_bio.html

"Before coming to HRW, Marc spent seven years in the Pentagon as a senior intelligence analyst covering Iraq. His last position there was chief of high-value targeting during the Iraq War in 2003. Marc was on the Operation Desert Fox (Iraq) Battle Damage Assessment team in 1998, led a Pentagon Battle Damage Assessment team to Kosovo in 1999, and recommended thousands of aimpoints on hundreds of targets during operations in Iraq and Serbia. He also participated in over 50 interrogations as a subject matter expert."

And again, it is clear now it was not the naval ships, everyone agrees. and the 155mm is an artillery shell, too big for ships.

 

[EagleKeeper]

The reason why I quoted the word experts is that they state that it could not have been ground exploded but there have been NO accusations of any other activity other than the naval shelling at the time from.

The PA or Hamas would have been loudly tooting their horns had that been the case.

So, if there was no other attack at the time from Israel at that area, the naval shelling has been ruled out, then where would the shelling have come from for something that large.

The PA does not have the ability to throw a 155mm.

So if it did not come via air, it had to have come by ground. And that contradicts the "HRW experts". But they state that it was not by ground.

Circle of missing/incomplete/inaccurate evidence

 

[Czar]

It doesnt contradict him. He clearly says, artillery shell, fired from the north. Not something put into the ground before hand by either the palestinians or isrealis.

So tell me, what are the evidence we have so far?

 

[EagleKeeper]

Originally posted by: Czar
It doesnt contradict him. He clearly says, artillery shell, fired from the north. Not something put into the ground before hand by either the palestinians or isrealis.

So tell me, what are the evidence we have so far?

With Israeli not stating that they were shelling and the PA not claiming that Israel was shelling then who was shelling and/or when?