July 31, 2006
Qana Media Coverup?
The more I see about the timeline in Qana, the more I doubt the story being told to us by the world's media.
Katherine Shrader and Kathy Gannon of AP make the strike and its effect seem immediate:
A three-story house on the outskirts of Qana was leveled when a missile crashed into it at 1 a.m. Red Cross officials said 56 were killed and police said 34 children and 12 adult women were among the dead. It was worst single strike since Israel's campaign in Lebanon began on July 12 when Hezbollah militants crossed the border into Israel and abducted two soldiers.
But we know that the immediacy of the collapse given in this timeline to be a false construct. Many hours before this AP story was released, the IDF had already reported that the building did not collapse until 8 A.M.
Shrader and Gannon did not question the rather unique makeup of the families hardest hit in the attack (my bold):
Israel suspended air attacks on south Lebanon for 48 hours starting early Monday in the face of widespread outrage over an airstrike on a house that killed 56 Lebanese, almost all of them women and children.[jump to page 2]
Red Cross officials said 56 were killed and police said 34 children and 12 adult women were among the dead.
[snip]
In Qana, workers pulled dirt-covered bodies of young boys and girls dressed in the shorts and T-shirts they had been sleeping in out of the mangled wreckage of the building. Bodies were carried in blankets.
Two extended families, the Shalhoubs and the Hashems, had gathered in the house for shelter from another night of Israeli bombardment in the border area when the strike brought the building down.
"I was so afraid. There was dirt and rocks and I couldn't see. Everything was black," said 13-year-old Noor Hashem, who survived, although her five siblings did not. She was pulled out of the ruins by her uncle, whose wife and five children also died.
34 children. 12 adult women. Not a single adult male officially listed among them. How strangely asexual these "civilian" families seem to be.
The men were elsewhere as under-reported elsewhere:
In Qana this morning, the Katyusha squads took their rocket launchers and rockets from inside the buildings, fired off the rockets at Israel and then rushed back inside.
It seems increasingly probable that the Shalhoub and Hashem men were likely members of Hezbollah, involved in launching the very rockets at Israel that called in the counter-battery fire that killed their families that were hiding deeper in the building.
It also seems possible that the deaths of the Shalhoub and Hashem women and children came not as a result of the initial Israeli air strike, but because of secondary explosions more than seven hours later, explosions that would seem to be consistent with ammunition and rockets "cooking off."
Based upon the evidence emerging, it seems more plausible than not that Hezbollah men were responsible for the deaths of Hezbollah women and children, and over-exploited that fact for media consumption.
Somehow, this more plausible scenario gets little play from Shrader and Gannon and the rest of the media.
It must be the CNN effect.
34 children + 12 women = 46. That leaves 10 unaccounted for. Were the rest male adults or unknown? I would have figured that any cowardly Hezbollah types would fire missiles from one building, then run and hide in a different building. Wouldn't want the response landing on guilty heads now, would we, Hezbollah?
Posted by: Tim at July 31, 2006 07:31 AMMedia exploitation means lying if need be, to make the story bigger than it is, or to spin it against the political enemies of the moonbat-amerikan left.
Even Fox couldn't take the time to get it right, and sounded more like CNN than did CNN.
Posted by: Ron at July 31, 2006 07:39 AMThe question seems to be just how deeply involved the media are in the manipulation taking place. Are they relativly innocent bystanders that are sympathetic to a cause & thus give extensive friendly coverage to the stories of "their side"; or are they stage managers that instruct and package their allies stories to produce propaganda for max impact, regardless of what the facts may be.
Posted by: handy at July 31, 2006 07:44 AMThe arab market is much larger than the Israeli market. Thus, the mainstrean media will take sides with the arabs. Cynical? Yes, but so are the media, and the arabs.
Posted by: Martin Lane at July 31, 2006 08:34 AMThis one really stinks of a conspiracy theory and not in the way it's presented here. Seven hours, for seven hours you think that fifty plus people sat in a bombed out building, so badly damaged that the damage eventually caused the munitions to 'cook off' and finally bring the building down.
If the women and children died from bullet wounds or had be bound and gagged then you could convince me that they'd been placed there after the blast, otherwise it's badly misplaced wishful thinking and making light of bad situation.
I'll say it here so folks don't think I'm anti-Israel. Yes they have a right to defend themselves. I back their current military operations 100%. If they choose a full blown air-land-sea campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon, Syria and Iran I'll back it to.
There are always casualties of war. Always have been, always will be, it's a fact of war. Trying to make excuses only makes things worse. Let's leave the conspiracy theories to the Kos kids and the nuts on the Democratic Underground, they're better at it and way more amusing.
Posted by: phin at July 31, 2006 08:40 AMYou can call it a conspiracy theory if you so desire, but it was the IDF that noted the building came down 7 hours after the air strike, not Alex Jones.
I do not state nor imply that Hezbollah murdered their relatives for propaganda purposes, but it is a horrific fact that they did use the bodies in that way, holding dead babies up like a sickening trophy for media consumption, for hours after they were recovered.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at July 31, 2006 08:49 AMCY, you've officially entered Tinfoil Hat territory. To be fair, are you now going to endorse the "pull down" theory about the WTC?
Posted by: Jay at July 31, 2006 08:57 AMI agree, it is time to get out your tinfoil hat and start talking about how the moon landings were done in a Hoolywood studio. It does not make sense the way you are describing it.
Posted by: Michelle at July 31, 2006 09:25 AMCY's explanation seems plausable but the story/explanation does seem to be jumping the gun. What are the 10 unknown bodies? If they are male then the whole theory of the men running off to toss missles goes out the door. This could be several families displaced by the war trying to survive. When the building falls down is kinda speculative. Sometimes buildings take time to weaken and fall down due to secondary sources like fire and shifting debree. Just as easily could have been a fire that hit a gas line or tank. The 50+ people could have been trapped the entire time, unable to get out which is why we always search rubble for survivors.
Of course this could be exactly what CY said, which is that the terrorists used women and children as human shields to protect their weapon arsonal.
More info will come out about this....
Posted by: matt a at July 31, 2006 09:49 AMIf you are determined at all cost to filter out the very idea of Israelis as out and out butchers, then you will of course go to desparate measures to keep your world-view intact, however in need of scrutiny it may well be.
But of course! Let's Blame it on the friggin media again!!!
The media doesn't even know that WMD's HAVE BEEN FOUND!
The media won't concede that Osama and Sadaam were bosom buddies.
And the media even thinks that the Israeli PM Ohlmert has no serious military background.
When will they ever tell it to us straight !!
Badri Ibn-Salem, reporting for TRUTH
Posted by: Buddy B. Saleeby at July 31, 2006 09:53 AMThis isn't "tin foil hat" territory, just the opposite. CY's observations are built upon facts, eyewitness observation, history, and common sense.
This is the M.O. of ME terrorists, exploiting women and children for maximum sympathy from western useful idiots.
There's a good reason the terrorists call the western press their #1 weapon.
Yankee you are citing 100% Jew Sources like ynetnews, isracast and above all IDF for your fiddling and trivial post. May the God of Jesus be cast you in the same conditions, then I'll ask you how asexual you and your family are...
Posted by: Joseph at July 31, 2006 10:13 AMWHAT ELSE DO YOU EXPECT FROM THE APT PUPILS OF JOSEF GOEBBLES!!
Posted by: Keith David at July 31, 2006 10:36 AMFox is pitiful. Trace Gallagher was the most hysterical reporter I've ever seen. Have these 30-40 years never seen real blood or anguish?
Posted by: jane lee at July 31, 2006 11:01 AM30-40 year old people - sorry for typo.
Posted by: jane lee at July 31, 2006 11:02 AMJoseph should be expecting fair unbiased news from Al-Jazeera? Because you know Al-Jazeera's done such a great job of covering both sides of the story.
Seeing how the conflict is taking place in Lebanon & Israel one would expect Israeli news services to be the first on the scene. I guess the WASPs around here keep forgetting they're Joooooos and incapable of telling the truth, crazy crackers can't remember anything.
By the way, wasn't Jesus a Jew? Just curious, you know sometimes I forget things, just wanted to make sure.
Posted by: phin at July 31, 2006 11:12 AMBefore jumping either to conspiracy or non-conspiracy, I think we need more facts. I still cannot find out if the eight-hour gap is confirmed. As much as I trust them the IDF does have a stake in that.
Having said that, however, it is crystal clear that no matter how the building came down, Hezbollah carries the ENTIRE weight of the guilt for what happened on its shoulders. No conspiracy is need to see that, and only moral color blindness prevents anyone from seeing it. If you are fighting a war you do what you can to protect your civilians, not sacrifice them. Not only does Hezbollah not act that way, it is constituted on the most fundamental philosophic and political ground of not acting that way. So in that sense, the media is entirely complicit in carrying Hezbollah's water by not directing its and the world's outrage at them immediately, delayed building collapse or no.
Posted by: Jon Burack at July 31, 2006 11:26 AMHas is crossed anyone's mind that Hezbollah knows that it's losing, so they desperately needed to have Israel bomb a house full of children in order to get the international community to ratchet up the pressure for a ceasefire? Seems pretty elementary.
Posted by: The Fop at July 31, 2006 11:41 AMThe question I'd like to see answered is how many of these civilian victims happen to be part of the sizable Christian minority in Lebanon, and how many of them happen to be Moslem.
On the one hand, you would expect Hezbollah to be firing from predominantly Muslim communities, so you would expect the death toll to be disproportionately Muslim on that basis.
On the other hand, you would generally anticipate Hezbollah to be far less concerned about the deaths of Christians than the deaths of Muslims.
Of course, you'd also have to consider the general makeup of the communities in south Lebanon before you tried to draw any conclusions....
Posted by: tommy higbee at July 31, 2006 11:49 AMConspiracy theories arise where facts are absent. Hezbollah controls the facts in this instance - we see ONLY what they want us to see (and the media plays along).
Given that, I think CY's conjecture is appropriate. There has to be consequences - even dismissal of the selected facts provided by Hezbollah - for the media manipulation operations of the Palestinians and Hezbollah. Don't do the crime if you can't handle the time.
Posted by: Sweetie at July 31, 2006 11:52 AMConsider the possibility that they were elderly and infirm or they were bodies they needed to dispose of and increased the body count.
I will be interested in hearing theories as to why the building fell some 7 hours after the attack with people inside it.
The target audience of this story is the muslim street and the Jewish/American hating left. The staged protests are falling on deaf ears, as far as I am concerned. Where is the outcry when Hezbollah hides and shoots from behind civilian shields?
Note to Israel:
Do it now! You are under attack which means we are under attack!
Posted by: vet66 at July 31, 2006 11:58 AMJoseph,
It is people like you, with little or no tolerance for others, that cause wars. Riddle me this oh St. Joe? What religion was Jesus? Add to that, what would he say about your condemnation of others? Just curious what you would say - I know the answers.
I think this goes right along with the propaganda video from Palestine after the middle of the night bombing of the Foreign Ministry building. Ambulance after ambulance filled with nothing but women and children being brought to the hospital. No injuries apparent. Even the shots of serious looking doctors examining children - no blood, no contusions, no broken bones - just a bunch of healthy people shoved into an ambulance for propaganda purposes. And the MSM fell fo it.
I guess the biggest question in this case is why people would stay in a building that was hit. It doesn't make sense.
Posted by: Specter at July 31, 2006 01:00 PMI also have concluded that the Qana narrative is too illogical to have produced the outcome of 56 dead. I've therefore argued that Hezballslack murdered their own people.
Posted by: Helen at July 31, 2006 01:08 PMHere's what I've heard: the building was a Hezbolleh C&C center. When the terrorists learned that it was a target of IDF missile attacks, they killed one child in each of their families to "salt" the site with "victims."
There will, of course, be no autopsies because of the Muslim "tradition" of burying bodies soon after death, but, if there were, my sources say that you'd find that each child was killed execution style--one bullet right through the back of the head.
There's no doubt that the whole thing is a lie--the IDF is using PRECISION BOMBING DEVICES, fer chrissakes. They don't call them "precision" for nothing.
Islamofascists have no regard for human life. When will the MSM learn this?
Allah, do you have any sourcing to back up your claims, whatsoever?
None of the dead show evidence of a bullet wound, and a bullet to the back of the head leaves an exit wound you cannot readily hide.
Sell it somehwere else, please.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at July 31, 2006 01:58 PMAll,
Use the link below to see how Palestinians stage "atrocities"
http://seconddraft.org/streaming/pallywood.wmv
Posted by: Yankee Reader at July 31, 2006 02:50 PMhow IDF could recognize the colapse time of that bulding? did they tell you how? did they spy there and wait for it to colapse?
Posted by: ray at July 31, 2006 03:08 PMread the accounts ray - see when Hezbollah and Lebonese authorities claim it collapsed. Geeez....
Posted by: Specter at July 31, 2006 03:09 PMhow IDF could recognize the colapse time of that bulding? did they tell you how? did they spy there and wait for it to colapse?
The launched two other strikes later that morning on nearby areas. As Specter noted, ray, reading up on current events might help you prevent such shows of ignorance... but I doubt it.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at July 31, 2006 03:25 PMSunday at an IDF press conference it was announced that IDF planes have video shot on later missions of the building in question, it was standing. As far as I know the IDF hasn't released those videos nor are they under any obligation to, other than the good PR that they likely wouldn't get anyways. The people may have taken refuge in the building due to the fact that it had already been hit; not the smartest thing to do but look at who we are discussing.
Posted by: El Rider at July 31, 2006 03:31 PMCY, thanks for posting on this topic. Something's rotten in Qana. Although the facts aren't in, and may never emerge, nevertheless it's clear there's a rather peculiar odor of a put up job here.
The terrorists hide behind women and children and when the inevitable "civilian" casualties occur, they milk their self-manufactured "atrocities" in the world media in order to condemn Israel.
I don't know what actually happened in Qana, but I do know you can't trust a word which comes from either the terrorists or from their allies in the sycophant media.
Bottom line: the terrorists would kill their own people, or collect and display the already dead bodies of those killed elsewhere, in order to portray Israel as guilty of killing innocent bystanders. As suggested, perhaps that explains the time delay, it took the terrorists a few hours to collect the bodies and place them in Qana for the media's big photo op.
Posted by: Black Jack at July 31, 2006 03:59 PMGee, Muslim women take care of children and Muslim men don't. What a surprise!
I'd take your paranoia one step further and pose it to you that Israel set the whole strike up to make it look like the Lebanese had set it up.
How far down this road do you want to travel, son?
Posted by: Actor212 at July 31, 2006 04:12 PMHmmm.
The IDF's point is that nobody called for rescue *until* 8am. That doesn't necessarily mean that the building didn't collapse until 8am.
*shrug* Hezbollah has a long history of sanitising areas of weapons and fighters before allowing the media access.
Still a lot of unknowns.
Posted by: ed at July 31, 2006 04:31 PMa bullet to the back of the head leaves an exit wound you cannot readily hide.
Not if its a .25cal pistol round. That won't exit. I shot a particularly recalcitrant possum with a .25 that had invaded my garage and refused to leave even after days of prompting. One small relatively bloodless entry wound and no exit.
Posted by: Purple Avenger at July 31, 2006 04:45 PMI don't think it is a conspiracy theory. Ten years ago Operation Grapes of Wrath ended when civilians were killed in Qana. Maybe Hezbellah saw an oppurtunity and took it by placing dead bodies in a bombed building. I don't know, but I do know who started this shooting match and it was not Israel.
As for the press, well these are the same people who thought there was 10,000 dead in New Orleans, dozens murdered in the Super Dome oh and then there was that massacre at Jenin, etc. Sometimes they leap before they look.
And they have minders in Lebanon. I have heard several of them mention that. I am not saying Israel did not do this, I don't know..but maybe the Israelis need to go drop some bombs on Darfur, maybe then the world would give a damn about the hundreds of thousands facing death there.
Posted by: Terrye at July 31, 2006 04:57 PMTrackback not working; I linked to your article from
http://plancksconstant.org/blog1/2006/07/hezbollah_held_child.html
It's been done before:
On the night of August 31, 1939 a small group of German operatives seized the Gleiwitz station and broadcasted a message in Polish that urged the Poles living in Silesia to strike against Germans. The Germans' goal was to make the attack and broadcast look like the work of anti-German Polish insurgents.
In order to make the attack scene more convincing, the Germans brought in Franciszek Honiok, a German Silesian known for sympathizing with the Poles, who had been arrested the previous day by the Gestapo. Honiok was dressed to look like an insurgent; then killed by lethal injection, given gunshot wounds, and left dead at the scene, so that he appeared to have been killed while attacking the station. His corpse was subsequently presented as proof of the attack to the police and press.
In addition to Honiok, several other convicts were kept available for this purpose. At the same time as the Gleiwitz attack there were other incidents orchestrated by Germany along the Polish-German border, such as house torching in the Polish Corridor and spurious propaganda output. The entire project, dubbed Operation Himmler and comprising 21 incidents in all, was intended to give the appearance of Polish aggression against Germany.
Posted by: Stuart K Jarman at July 31, 2006 07:24 PMWhat I find unusual is the complete lack of non-fatal injuries. One might expect at least an equal number of non-fatal injuries. I suspect that a lot of these cadavers were recruited from the morgue in Tyre.
Posted by: NoiseLTD at July 31, 2006 08:42 PMPlease look at this thread, notice how nice and clean the shirts are of the rescue workers and the discussion on the thread, these people should be found and prosecuted for war crimes.
http://www.eureferendum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2323
(Thanks to links found on Patterico's Pontifications).
Posted by: MD in Philly at August 1, 2006 09:46 AMI'm not sure why everyone has to address this immediately as a coverup. Is it so hard to believe that indiscriminately bombing a country will result in massive civilian casualities? Hezbolleh don't operate like a traditional army. Since there are no set locations to bomb, there is no way that Israel can hit them with surgical strikes without hitting many civilians as well. It's just common sense. They bomb everything and assume that probably got some Hezbolleh fighters as well.
Do you also scrutinize every Israeli Army press release as well? There is always tons of misinformation in any military engagement and it's hard to believe that this is any different.
Posted by: stevo at August 1, 2006 10:19 AM10 men + 12 women + 34 children.
5/6 ratio of male to female.
Approximately 5 children to each "pairing".
That sounds anything but asexual.
Posted by: Owen at August 1, 2006 11:30 AMStevo,
Did you check out the EU Referendum link in my post? Please do. I don't automatically assume anything, except you don't know what to believe until you see enough facts that can't be disproven.
Either Hezbollah did a lot of work to perpetrate a hoax, or someone at EU Referendum has... but I don't think it is the latter, I think their pictures etc. are from other sources.
Posted by: MD in Philly at August 1, 2006 01:46 PMThe time of the impact has been variously reported as happening at 12 or 1 am, and the collapse as being at 7am or 8 am. The IDF doesn't pretend it has any direct evidence of the time of the collapse (because they weren't there) but claim to be relying on "foreign press reports" (which ones, they won't say).
I don't have the original news report for the alleged time of 8am, although it seems funny that this whole thread is based on a "news report" from an ostensibly "liberal" news agency that none of you would probably have given any credence to had it not given you a tingle between your tinfoil-trouser clad legs.
I'm also curious as to how an impact at 1am could cause a "cook-off" at 8am given that there was no evidence of widespread fire, and given that the shelter was constructed of concrete.
Finally, have any of you chairborne military geniuses considered that an impact sufficient to demolish a concrete structure might actually have killed people on impact?
m
Posted by: mt at August 2, 2006 01:32 AMWas it also a hoax in 1996 when Israel did the exact same thing?
Posted by: Cranky Yankee at August 2, 2006 08:33 AMI think most of the people here are jewish.I want to ask them if Hitler was muslim?or 6 million jews were killed in lebenon or in phalestine?was Spain a muslim country when the jews were exiled?Who did save the jews when exiled from spain?
Posted by: gogol at August 2, 2006 04:35 PMOn the 2 seperate on the ground witnesesses stae the building collapsed at 1AM.
The Red Cross were contacted at 7AM.
There is no timeline discrepancy whatsoever!
Why the 6 hour gap before the Red Cross being contacted? Simple... there probably not many people willing to venture out during the middle of Isreali bombing to inspect damage. it was probably quite dark too being only 1AM.
Why sane people think that there is any conspiracy here is beyond me!
K Lam wrote:
On the 2 seperate on the ground witnesesses stae the building collapsed at 1AM.
Geez, I'm looking at the first several pictures in this gallery, and the building looks remakably intact.
What is that you said? They were in the basement?
Well then, this basement has plenty of natural light, as can be seen in this photo; but then again, this looks more like a ground level room without a wall, since these guys seem to be having a very easy job in digging up corpses. Either the building was vaporized, leaving no debris to interact with the force of gravity, or nothing in that picture collapsed.
Hmm, the ceiling seems fine; I wonder how all that crap got inside the room?
Hey, here's a thought: this building, where the previously linked image was taken, doesn't even seem complete, as the walls aren't even painted. All the crap in the room looks like construction waste, and I think I can definitely make out some garbage bags.
Curious indeed.
Posted by: dna at August 2, 2006 07:13 PM"Hmm, the ceiling seems fine; I wonder how all that crap got inside the room?"
DNA, you still have got to grips with the fact that the building DID NOT take a direct hit, so it is not suprising that the ceiling is intact.
The powerful bomb blast however could well have damaged the structural integrity of the building
hense the collapse.
Collasped buildings do create a fair amount of internal rubble you know.
Not really curious at all!
I can't believe all these morons.
1. This building was used by terrorists as a weapons storage place, that same building was used to fire rockets into Israel (very humane of them to use a civilain building).
2. The terrorists used a hospital as their headquarters. If israel would have blown it up all you morons will go up in arms. Israel went in with comando units killed a few terrorists and took a few enemy combatants (high ranking ones). I didn't hear any uproar that a hospital was used for military purposes.
3. Per the geneva convention ANY location that is used to fire from, store weapons etc. is a legitimate war target!!! Hospital, Mosq, Church etc.
Stop all you anti semitism that the arabs can do no wrong and Israel is allways bad.
Remember one thing Israel does not target killing of civilians. If they target a legitimate target and these scum use children as live shields that is when you get "innocent" death.
The Arabs specifically TARGET civilians over 2000 rockets were shot into Israel. Where were they targetd to??? ALL civilians.
Where is the worlds uproar on that???
I gues Jewish blood is cheap and is good to be spilled and the media is not biased and not anti semite.
Posted by: Antimatter at August 3, 2006 12:12 AMit is important that the un and the icrc make an indepth invistigation to clear up the truth.
Posted by: alison armstrong at August 5, 2006 09:16 AM