August 02, 2006
IDF Investigating Qana Because of Blog Reports
From the Jerusalem Post:
The IDF is looking into allegations raised over the past few days by several pro-Israel, Jewish and conservative Weblogs that Hizbullah may have staged aspects of the Kana tragedy on Sunday, in which some 60 Lebanese bodies were removed from a building that collapsed seven hours after being hit in an Israel Air Force strike.The dead were mainly children, women and elderly people.
The International Committee of the Red Cross Mission in Israel said Tuesday that it would inform its Swiss headquarters about the allegations and seek to clarify the questions raised.
Israel has acknowledged hitting the building, and said 150 Katyushas had been fired from the village in the previous 20 days, with Hizbullah hiding rocket launchers in civilian buildings there. Israel said it did not know civilians were inside the building and expressed sorrow over the tragedy.
The IDF is investigating questions raised by Confederate Yankee, EU Referendum, and other blogs and web sites.
The questions include:
- When did the building collapse, and what caused the collapse?
- Were the photos taken of the victims staged?
- Why do the bodies of the victims not show the crushing injuries one would expect in a building collapse?
- Why weren't journalists allowed near the building?
- Why is their such a discrepancy in the initial casualty figures cited to the world (55-60) and the number of bodes recovered by the Lebanese Red Cross (28)?
- Who is the man known as “Green Helmet” who was in so many of these pictures, and why was he in other, similar photos dating back to 1996?
The International Committee of the Red Cross is currently preparing a report based upon data collected by the Lebanese Red Cross.
FYI, Jonah Goldberg provides a link to your blog in his article today on NRO.
Posted by: Matt at August 2, 2006 08:43 AMYep. The link is here.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at August 2, 2006 08:50 AMWho is the green helmet guy? via An Unsealed Room:
His name is Abdel Qader. He claims that they couldn't reach the building before 8 am because of the conditions of the road and the danger of being hit by the Israeli airforce. His voice is girly and his clothes look impeccably clean!
There's a video of him on youtube now (aljazeera interview)
Posted by: Kevin at August 2, 2006 10:36 AMGood video, clearly shows it was a photo-op.
In comparison, I remember footage from suicide bombing in Israel, where everybody would be rushing to clear the area, the paramedics in the area would be rushing to help the injured, and would yell to everybody to get the f*ck out of the way.
Here -- although different from a suicide bombing -- they aren't even trying to find survivors; the death of the civilians seems to be a forgone conclusion.
Posted by: dna at August 2, 2006 11:02 AMYou da man, CY!
Posted by: Retired Spy at August 2, 2006 12:55 PMYep. CY is on the job -- worldwide investigative journalism from the back of an El Camino in North Carolina. Thank God for bum-leg Bob.
Posted by: Lint at August 2, 2006 01:28 PMWhy is this dust covered baby's pacifier completely clean?
http://www.eureferendum.com/admin/media/green%20helmet%20004.jpeg
Posted by: Dave at August 2, 2006 01:34 PM"In comparison, I remember footage from suicide bombing in Israel, where everybody would be rushing to clear the area, the paramedics in the area would be rushing to help the injured, and would yell to everybody to get the f*ck out of the way."
there are LOTS of photos at this gallery:
http://www.ghaliboun.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=22
i dont think you guys are aware of that URL yet.
Posted by: archduke at August 2, 2006 03:31 PMHere's one of the weirder images - from that gallery
http://www.ghaliboun.net/gallery/displayimage.php?album=22&pos=98
anyone else think it slightly strange that a cameraman is allowed INTO the collapsed building and allowed to get in the way of the "rescue" effort?
Who is "Mr Cameraman" ?
Posted by: archduke at August 2, 2006 03:40 PMarchduke wrote:
anyone else think it slightly strange that a cameraman is allowed INTO the collapsed building and allowed to get in the way of the "rescue" effort?
You're right: the press-crew seems to be intrinsic to the rescue effort, as if it couldn't go forward if they weren't there.
Also, what about this one? I thought the building collapsed.
Posted by: dna at August 2, 2006 06:18 PMHere are the answers you seek:
When did the building collapse?
At 1am, as _all_ the eyewitnesses reported from the start:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/744332.html
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=101b250b-92be-4dae-9bd9-be7b62b02192
http://kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2006/08/01/5159.shtml
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5228224.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1833884,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=1
and what caused the collapse?
Er - the IAF dropped a bomb on it? Just a guess. But the IDF admits dropping the bomb, and the people in the village say it landed on them. I'm sure the conspiracy theorists can come up with something much more complicated though, if it suits their prejudices.
Were the photos taken of the victims staged?
This is no evidence of this - though a lot of people seem to want it to be true.
Why do the bodies of the victims not show the crushing injuries one would expect in a building collapse?
Because the basement they were in was _not_ crushed - this is clear in all the pictures of the site. They died from the blast or from being buried under earth and rubble. They were certainly injured though, killed in fact, a lot of them. According to this report by a journalist who witnessed the rescue:
"They came across the smallest corpses last, many intact but with lungs crushed by the blast wave of the bombing."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1833884,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=1
Why weren’t journalists allowed near the building?
They were - that's how come there are hundreds of newswire photos of it all over the net. Doh!
Why is their such a discrepancy in the initial casualty figures cited to the world (55-60) and the number of bodes recovered by the Lebanese Red Cross (28)?
28 bodies recovered, 13 still missing = 42. Full report, with the names and ages of those identified so far, is at:
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/HRW/c934b8a94f226d3ab6461928c606cb65.htm
The initial reports were based on the number of people known to have been in the basement (63) less the number of known survivors at the time (9). The initial figure of 'over 60' was given to journalists by the Lebanese police.
Who is the man known as “Green Helmet” who was in so many of these pictures, and why was he in other, similar photos dating back to 1996?
He is a Lebanese civil defence worker named Jradi, from Tyre, and it is his job to help at these kinds of incidents in the Tyre area. He was interviewed many times on the day. Try this Google news search
http://news.google.co.uk/news?q=jradi&btnG=Search+News
Were the photos taken of the victims staged?
This is no evidence of this - though a lot of people seem to want it to be true
Depends on how you interpret "staged". Were the rescue workers posing with the bodies so that the cameramen could get the best shots? Absolutely - but this is just propaganda, not a crime.
Were the deaths faked somehow? No evidence to support that.
The initial reports were based on the number of people known to have been in the basement (63) less the number of known survivors at the time (9). The initial figure of 'over 60' was given to journalists by the Lebanese police.
In other words, they have reversed the regular way of reporting fatalities to increase the propaganda value. Rather than saying "26 killed, 28 unaccounted for", or something similar, they assume that anyone not known to be alive is in fact dead. Get the high number out fast, because it's going on page one and the correction will be on page C-27. Again, though, just propaganda, not a crime.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at August 2, 2006 09:26 PMI see that LGF is making the point on the inverted reporting too.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at August 2, 2006 10:42 PM>In other words, they have reversed the regular way of reporting fatalities to increase the propaganda value.
Do you remember the reported fatalities on 9/11 ? There were initially 60,000 people inside WTC. Several hours after the planes went in, news programmes talked about 6,000 people dead. This number went down and down the following days to about half.
Posted by: daniel at August 6, 2006 03:39 AM
