I wondered about this report when I first read it.
An Israeli missile hit a school in Beit Hanoun, killing a teacher and wounding three pupils, hospital officials said.Two of the wounded were initially identified as fellow staff members but the Education Ministry later said all three were pupils aged 16.
“What was the fault of a teacher, an emissary on a sacred mission?” the ministry said in a statement deploring the attack.
Keep in mind the claim of the Education Minstry later. The next two paragraphs provided a likely explanation for what happened. (And keep in mind that Hamas specifically fires its qassams at the very times that Israeli children are going to or returning from school.)
An Israeli military spokeswoman said troops had fired on a Palestinian rocket crew spotted inside Beit Hanoun.”We certainly did not target a school,” she said. An investigation is under way to determine whether the building might have been hit by a stray missile.
But as is Israel’s nature, it was checking to make sure that it didn’t make a mistake.
Elder of Ziyon saw a later report that confirmed Israel’s first response.
Associated Press Television News footage showed the school to be a series of huts in a rural area. A rocket-launching device was spotted between some olive trees, indicating militants had used the school for cover to launch attacks.
Elder of Ziyon observes:
Placing a rocket launcher on the grounds of a school is, of course, a war crime. But Hamas, as well as the “moderate” PA, will cynically use use the death of a teacher as proof of supposed Israeli attacks on civilians.
Do you think that the spokesman from Hamas’s Education Ministry didn’t know that rockets were being launched within proximity to the school?
Meryl notes another example of how Hamas looks out for the welfare of its constituents.
Hamas policemen seized a convoy of humanitarian aid bound for the Palestinian Red Crescent on Thursday evening, the second convoy it has taken from the aid agency, aid employees said.Policemen from Hamas halted 14 trucks filled with food and medicine at a checkpoint after it crossed an Israeli checkpoint into Gaza on Thursday, said employees of the Palestinian Red Crescent, who declined to be named, fearing reprisals from Hamas. A Hamas official said the aid was seized because the organization was distributing aid to former Fatah fighters and not to impoverished Palestinians.
And she lists other Hamas assaults on the freedoms of the residents of Gaza.
When Hamas was building support for its “political” program it could count on the support of credulous reporters who would portray them as cuddly policy wonks. Now they’re showing they’re true colors (not just towards Israel) and the media tries to find the one thing that possibly casts the organization in a positive light: that it hadn’t claimed any suicide attacks in four years until this week’s in Dimona. I don’t think that it was for lack of effort. And given its record, especially recently, it’s hard to comprehend why reporters are still trying to give them the benefit of the doubt. (It might be that Hamas was accurate in claiming “credit” for the attack in Dimona.)
At some point we ought to start seeing reports on how Hamas is starting to create a backlash in Gaza by its shows of reckless disregard for its constituents. Somehow, I don’t think that we’ll ever read a significant number of such reports.
UPDATE: Ellen Knickmeyer of the Washington Post covers some of this. In a related slideshow (using an AP report) the strike on the school is desribed as part of the “escalating violence.” No word on the AP report on the presence of the rocket launchers near the school. Given the reliability of Hamas on similar matters in the past, it’s remarkable that Knickmeyer didn’t at least include a line to the effect of: “Often when Israel strikes at civilians it’s in response to weaponry or fighters located among non-combatants.” We’ll see if she corrects the story in subsequent reports.
Crossposted at Soccer Dad.
