VIDEO: Massacre of Palestinian Women and Children

Israel's "Cloud of Autumn" Massacre in Gaza

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VIDEO: MASSACRE OF PALESTINIAN WOMEN AND CHILDREN


Global Research Editor’s note

Israeli Forces shoot indiscriminately at Palestinian Women and Children.

The official story of the Israeli military is that this was a crack-down operation on “terrorists”.

Read the semi-official report by the Voice of America (VOA) (below) and then view the video to see what really happened:

 

“Mr. Olmert says Israel intends to stop what he describes as the terror coming from Gaza, but has no intention of reoccupying the territory.

Israeli military authorities expressed regret for the death of a 12-year old girl. She was shot by an Israeli sniper who Israeli authorities say was aiming at a Palestinian militant.

Two Palestinian women were killed by Israeli troops in a chaotic demonstration by Palestinian women acting as human shields for Palestinian militants. The militants escaped from a mosque in Beit Hanoun that was under siege by Israeli forces.” (VOA)

The “hidden agenda” behind Israel’s so-called “unilateral disengagement plan” (leading to the 2005 evacuation of Jewish Settlers) is to transform Gaza into a concentration camp.

How long will the Western media, which claims to be balanced, continue to justify Israeli war crimes?

Michel Chossudovsky, 10 November 2006

Note: Global Research deplores the offensive byline which appears at the outset of the Video.

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VIDEO: MASSACRE OF PALESTINIAN WOMEN AND CHILDREN

RELATED PRESS REPORTS

Mass kidnapping of Palestinian men in Beit Hanoun by Israeli occupation forces

Date: 02 / 11 / 2006 Time: 17:02

Gaza – Ma’an –

Israeli occupation forces, on Thursday afternoon, transferred the males of Beit Hanoun aged between 16-45 in a convoy of large trucks to unknown destinations.

Security sources reported that the Israeli occupation forces called the men through loudspeakers, and gathered them in front of An-Nassr mosque in the north of Beit Hanoun.

In addition, Palestinian sources stated that Nadi Salim Ubaid, 20, from the Al-Shuja’iya district was injured, while medical personnel can not transfer him to hospital. According to the director of relief and ambulances, the young man is being detained by Israelis near the border line between the Gaza Strip and Israeli territory.


Khalleej Times Online

And Israel’s brave soldiers do not think twice before firing at a crowd of peaceful women protesters. . The siege and attack on Beit Hanun mosque in northern Gaza on Friday killed two women and seriously injured dozens of them.

The scenes of women wailing over their children — as young as 15 — and children crying for their mothers are truly heart-rending despite the fact that they have long been a regular feature of the life in occupied Palestine

Also on Saturday, a 12-year-old girl was shot in the head and killed by an Israeli sniper in Gaza, Palestinian officials said. The Israeli military expressed regret, saying the sniper was aiming at an armed militant.

emphasis added

GAZA, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) — Palestinian medics said on Friday that 23 people, including militants, women and children, were killed as the Israeli army ground military operation called “Cloud of Autumn” went on in northern Gaza Strip.

The Israeli army stormed early Wednesday the border town of Beit Hanoun between northern Gaza Strip and Israel.

Residents in the town said on Friday that Israeli forces had completely seized the town and imposed a curfew on it, and the town had witnessed clashes between militants and Israeli soldiers.

Joma’a al-Saqqa, chief of emergency at Shiffa Hospital in Gaza City, said that the Israeli army killed on Friday seven Palestinians, four of them women and children.

Of the dead, two women were from a parade of woman demonstrators, who gathered and marched toward the occupied town from nearby towns and refugee camps in northern Gaza Strip.

Israeli soldiers opened fire and dispersed them when they approached the besieged town, killing two women and wounding 15 others, according to witnesses.

Local residents also said that Israeli snipers shot dead on Friday morning two Palestinian teens, residents of the town, and wounded five others.

Meanwhile, witnesses and security sources said that an Israeli army reconnaissance drone fired one missile at a car driving east of Gaza City, killing three Hamas militants.

The Israeli army killed eight people on Wednesday and another eight and on Thursday, Al-Saqqa said, adding that so far, 23 people have been killed in northern Gaza Strip.

Residents said that in Beit Hanoun, Israeli tanks and armored vehicles were stationed on major crossroads, adding that sounds of shooting and gunfire could be heard all the time.

According to residents, Israeli army bulldozers demolished a mosque in the town, where about 50 militants were believed to be hiding up. The militants, however, managed to flee the mosque, according to the residents.

The Israeli army also called on males aged between 16 and 45 to gather in the playground of a school in the town and detained at least 100, residents said.

The Israeli army said in a statement that the aim of the operation in the town was to curb rampant homemade rocket attacks on Israel by Palestinian militant groups from the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian militant groups claimed responsibility for firing dozens of homemade rockets and mortar shells at Israeli communities in southern Israel as well as firing missiles at Israeli army vehicles.

Meanwhile, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, an Israeli army unit arrested Abdel Rahman Zeidan, minister of Work and Municipal Affairs in the Hamas-led government, from his home.

Since the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier in Gaza on June 25, Israel has detained many Palestinians ministers and lawmakers, most of them from the ruling Hamas movement.

In the city of Nablus in northern West Bank, an Israeli army force on Friday shot dead a 15-year-old boy, the brother of a militant from the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, in an attack on their home.

Editor: Han Lin

Israeli authorities have dismissed the Beit Hanun massacre as the result of “a technical failure” in the radar system.  Read the “official lies” in the Jerusalem Post.

IDF: Error caused Beit Hanun tragedy

Nov 8, 2006

A technical failure in the artillery’s radar system was to blame for Wednesday’s tragedy in Beit Hanun, the IDF announced Thursday night.

A failure in the targeting mechanism caused seven shells to stray from their intended trajectories, resulting in the deaths of 19 Palestinian civilians, said Maj.-Gen. Meir Klifi, who headed the investigation into the incident.

In light of the inquiry, Defense Minister Amir Peretz ordered Thursday evening that all artillery fire into the Gaza Strip must first be approved by OC Southern Command Maj.-Gen. Yoav Galant.

Meanwhile, Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz ordered a halt to all artillery fire aimed at Gaza until further technical, professional and operational inquiries are completed, the IDF Spokesman’s Office said.

“The chief of General Staff emphasized that the IDF operates solely against the terrorist infrastructure and uses all means at its disposal to avoid targeting uninvolved civilians. The chief of General Staff expressed his regret for the civilian casualties as a result of the technical failure,” its statement read.

Speaking with reporters soon after submitting the results of his investigation to Halutz and Defense Minister Amir Peretz, Klifi, who is deputy OC Ground Forces Command, said his team found that the “Shilem System” kit had been installed in the cannon by IDF technicians five days previously.

It was tested in live firing exercises, and checked again by technicians 11 hours before its use Wednesday, Klifi said. The kit had been in use since the 1980s and after “hundreds of thousands” of firings showed a margin of error of 25 meters, Klifi said. However, for reasons that are not entirely clear, the system failed – with tragic results. Nineteen members of an extended family were killed, including many women and children, and some 50 others wounded when the errant shells tore through an apartment complex. The attack outraged the international community, and Israel was placed on heightened alert in anticipation of reprisals by the terror organizations.

Klifi said instruments on the cannon showed a variation of 200 meters immediately after the shelling, but that the margin could have been larger because of the faulty kit. He said his probe found that at least two homes in Beit Hanun showed evidence of having been directly hit. All the evidence of the inquiry indicated that the civilian casualties were caused by IDF artillery, Klifi said.

Peretz reiterated his regret for the tragic accident and, in an effort to aid the victims, he ordered the Rafah border crossing to be opened until 5 p.m., with preference given to ambulances, medical and humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip, according to a statement from the Defense Ministry. The crossing had been closed due to intelligence of plans to attack the installation.

But the Palestinians were unswayed by Peretz’s apology, and Kassam cells targeted Sderot through out the day, launching five rockets into the town. One Kassam scored a direct hit on a store at 6:50 p.m., spraying shrapnel that lightly wounded three people, the army said.

Earlier, two Kassam rockets landed in one the kibbutzim in the Eshkol Regional Council. No one was wounded, but some of buildings were damaged. Three others rockets struck open areas.

Security forces, meanwhile, braced for Palestinian reprisals inside the Green Line, and security sources said there are currently 80 warnings of plans to carry out attacks. They said there is intelligence of 15 specific cells that are in the final stages of preparation for attacks ranging from suicide bombings to kidnappings. The current alert level is six – the maximum – a police official said.

Meanwhile, demonstrations in east Jerusalem and Hebron turned violent as Palestinians took to the street to protest the botched artillery strike.

Residents of east Jerusalem closed businesses and schools in solidarity with a three-day mourning period decreed by Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, and spontaneous demonstrations broke out inside the Old City and in Arab neighborhoods.

Hundreds of youths rallied at the Damascus Gate and near the Temple Mount, where they chanted anti-Israel slogans and threw stones at border policemen.

Anticipating disturbances in the area, police reinforced their presence, and the Temple Mount compound was closed for closed for close to an hour. When the rioters turned their rage against the police station near the Western Wall, police dispersed the angry crowd with stun grenades.

In separate incidents on on Sultan Suleiman and Salah a-Din streets, youths bombarded police with stones and debris, slightly injuring two officers, and at a gas station in Isawiya, youths hurled stones from inside a bus at police on patrol. When the police stopped the bus, the youths attacked the officers before police subdued them and arrested four believed to have thrown the stones.

Jerusalem police said they were planning to maintain a heavy presence during Friday prayers on the Temple Mount in light of intelligence information that activists planned to disturb public order there.

They announced that entrance to the compound would be permitted only to those men presenting an Israeli identity card who were older than 45, and to women of any age with Israeli identity cards.

Rebecca Anna Stoil contributed to this report.

Copyright Jerusalem Post 2006


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