Who Killed the Palestinians Fleeing South on Rashid Road in Gaza?
There are two parallel north-south roads in Gaza: The main one, that is in the very center of the Strip, is Salah al-Din Street. The second, smaller one, runs along the coast; this is Al-Rashid Road. Recently the Hamas Health Ministry in Gaza produced videos of Al-Rashid Street on which fourteen corpses were strewn, along with their belongings. The Hamas Ministry at once blamed Israel for the killings, and without any further investigation, reporters from around the world dutifully parroted the Hamas Ministry’s claims. And from there, the story spread among the army of Israel-haters who placed the story everywhere they could on social media. This was just one more putative atrocity committed by those terrible Israelis, along with their previous atrocities — that “airstrike on Al-Ahli Hospital that killed 500,” and on Nov. 3, the IDF’s incomprehensible and wanton firing on “dozens of ambulances outside Al-Shifa Hospital, killing the wounded lying in their Red Crescent vehicles.”
Very quickly, the falsity of both stories became clear. At al-Ahli hospital there had not been any Israeli airstrike, as the tiny depression in the ground testified; had there been an airstrike, it would have left a very deep, and very wide, crater. And the hospital itself would have suffered damage as well, but none was visible in the videos of the building released by Hamas. The Americans independently confirmed what the IDF had contended: the explosion at the hospital parking lot was caused by a rocket, launched from Gaza by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, that had misfired and fell inside Gaza. Nor had the hospital itself been hit — as one can see in the videos — but only the parking lot next to the hospital. Finally, investigation by Western intelligence services revealed that not 500, but “10 to 50” people had died as a result of the misfired rocket.
As to the claim by Hamas that on November 3 Israel had fired on a whole convoy of ambulances parked outside Al-Shifa hospital, that too was false. Israel targeted, and hit, only one of the ambulances, and the IDF explained that Hamas routinely transported its fighters and weapons in ambulances; that the terror group had started engaging in this practice during the 2014 war; that Israel had intelligence that the ambulance they hit was carrying Hamas fighters. The IDF acknowledged immediately that one of its aircraft had hit a single ambulance in he convoy, one that had been “identified by [intelligence] forces as being used by a Hamas terrorist cell in close proximity to their position in the battle zone.” It said a “number of Hamas terrorist operatives were killed in the strike.” This did not prevent much of the media from reporting that “Israel struck a convoy of ambulances carrying only the wounded.”
Hamas has denied the presence of fighters in the ambulance convoy, saying the IDF’s claims are “baseless.”But Hamas has such a long record of lying about everything, including the number of civilian casualties it has suffered, its charge that Israel uses chemical weapons, its absurd denial that any atrocities were committed by Hamas operatives on October 7, and its description of Hamas marchers on the Great March of Return as “unarmed,” when they were clearly hurling rocks, Molotov cocktails, firebombs, and even grenades at IDF soldiers. It’s hard to think of a time when Hamas told the truth. Now Hamas wants the world to believe that the IDF hit a “convoy” when it hit only one Red Crescent ambulance, and that of course they were only transporting innocent wounded civilians. “Israel says it hit an ambulance used by Hamas. Gaza officials say it was carrying the wounded,” by Chantal Da Silva, NBC News, November 4, 2023:
But the IDF said it had “information which demonstrates that Hamas’ method of operation is to transfer terror operatives and weapons in ambulances.” It said further information about the incident would be made available, but that the IDF had already shared more details with intelligence agencies it works with.
Now let’s return to the fourteen dead Palestinians found lying on Al-Rashid Road. Hamas says they were murdered by the IDF. Outside Gaza, the army of Israel-haters have parroted the charge. But of course the IDF had nothing to do with their deaths, as Elder of Ziyon explains here: “Latest blood libel: Hamas slaughters fleeing Gazans, Israel blamed,” Elder of Ziyon, November 3, 2023:
Al Jazeera writes:
The health ministry in Gaza says an Israeli attack killed at least 14 Palestinians who were fleeing from the bombarded territory’s north to its south.
Witnesses said the attack hit al-Rashid road, Gaza’s coastal road which the Israeli military has previously told civilians to take to travel south.
“The occupation committed a new massacre against displaced civilians and killed 14 citizens, children and women,” ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said in a statement.
The video clip shows about a dozen civilians, clearly carrying their personal possessions, dead on the road.
Now, does this look like an Israeli airstrike? Artillery fire? Tank fire?
The video shows intact bodies lying on the road. An artillery or tank shell, or an airstrike, would have left the bodies in smithereens. They were clearly killed by rifle fire.
Or does it look like someone with a rifle who shot these civilians, one by one, as they tried to flee, dropping their possessions? That’s the only thing that explains how far apart they are from each other.
Doesn’t it look a lot like the Israelis who were picked off, one by one, at the Nova music festival on October 7?
Let’s ask another question. Does Israel have anything to gain by slaughtering fleeing civilians – when they sent millions of texts, voice messages and flyers urging the civilians to flee? Hundreds of thousands did, and Israel didn’t touch any of them.
Israel has for four weeks been trying to convince civilians to flee south to a “safer place,” dropping hundreds of thousands of leaflets warning them to do so.. The IDF is battling Hamas in the north of Gaza, and it wants as many civilians as possible to be out of the way of danger. Hamas wants them to stay put; it knows that the presence of civilians will constrain the IDF, and besides, it wants to maximize civilian casualties for propaganda purposes, perhaps just as much as Israel wants to minimize them because the IDF is, as British Colonel Richard Kemp has said, “the most moral army in the world.”
Or does Hamas have anything to gain, given that they have told Gazans not to flee, and they gain political capital for every dead Gazan?
By shooting down Gazans who did as the IDF told them to do, and were fleeing south, and blaming the IDF for the killing, Hamas achieves two goals. First, it dissuades those civilians in the north from making what will now be seen as a perilous journey south. Second, civilians told by Hamas that the Israelis shot these civilians on the Al-Rashid Road will likely not trust any Israeli assurances about a “safe passage” south.
A final question: Does Hamas have a track record of not caring about the welfare of Gaza civilians at all?…
Yes, it has such a track record.
Hamas leaders have stolen vast sums from the billions given by donors to improve the wellbeing of ordinary civilians in Gaza. Just three of them — Khaled Meshaal, Mousa Abu Marzouk, and Ismail Haniyeh — have taken a total of eleven billion dollars for themselves. Lower echelon Hamas officials have been allowed to take a few million dollars apiece — that collectively add up to a goodly sum. Furthermore, Hamas chose to spend what money remained not on furthering the welfare of Gazans, but on acquiring weapons and, above all, on building a vast underground network of 313 miles of tunnels crisscrossing under the Strip, none of which contributes one whit to the wellbeing of the people of Gaza.
It would be absurd for Israel to do anything that would cause Gazans not to flee south, when getting them to do so has been the subject of the IDF’s incessant warnings, including those hundreds of thousands of flyers dropped over Gaza City, during the past month of warfare. Nor do the Israelis shoot down civilians in cold blood. Hamas, however, does kill civilians, whenever it has a chance — just as the world saw it do to 260 Israeli young people at the music festival on October 7.
Now, does this look like an Israeli airstrike? Artillery fire? Tank fire?
The video shows intact bodies lying on the road. An artillery or tank shell, or an airstrike, would have left the bodies in smithereens. They were clearly killed by rifle fire.
Or does it look like someone with a rifle who shot these civilians, one by one, as they tried to flee, dropping their possessions? That’s the only thing that explains how far apart they are from each other.
Doesn’t it look a lot like the Israelis who were picked off, one by one, at the Nova music festival on October 7?
Let’s ask another question. Does Israel have anything to gain by slaughtering fleeing civilians – when they sent millions of texts, voice messages and flyers urging the civilians to flee? Hundreds of thousands did, and Israel didn’t touch any of them.
Israel has for four weeks been trying to convince civilians to flee south to a “safer place,” dropping hundreds of thousands of leaflets warning them to do so.. The IDF is battling Hamas in the north of Gaza, and it wants as many civilians as possible to be out of the way of danger. Hamas wants them to stay put; it knows that the presence of civilians will constrain the IDF, and besides, it wants to maximize civilian casualties for propaganda purposes, perhaps just as much as Israel wants to minimize them because the IDF is, as British Colonel Richard Kemp has said, “the most moral army in the world.”
Or does Hamas have anything to gain, given that they have told Gazans not to flee, and they gain political capital for every dead Gazan?
By shooting down Gazans who did as the IDF told them to do, and were fleeing south, and blaming the IDF for the killing, Hamas achieves two goals. First, it dissuades those civilians in the north from making what will now be seen as a perilous journey south. Second, civilians told by Hamas that the Israelis shot these civilians on the Al-Rashid Road will likely not trust any Israeli assurances about a “safe passage” south.
A final question: Does Hamas have a track record of not caring about the welfare of Gaza civilians at all?…
Yes, it has such a track record.
Hamas leaders have stolen vast sums from the billions given by donors to improve the wellbeing of ordinary civilians in Gaza. Just three of them — Khaled Meshaal, Mousa Abu Marzouk, and Ismail Haniyeh — have taken a total of eleven billion dollars for themselves. Lower echelon Hamas officials have been allowed to take a few million dollars apiece — that collectively add up to a goodly sum. Furthermore, Hamas chose to spend what money remained not on furthering the welfare of Gazans, but on acquiring weapons and, above all, on building a vast underground network of 313 miles of tunnels crisscrossing under the Strip, none of which contributes one whit to the wellbeing of the people of Gaza.
It would be absurd for Israel to do anything that would cause Gazans not to flee south, when getting them to do so has been the subject of the IDF’s incessant warnings, including those hundreds of thousands of flyers dropped over Gaza City, during the past month of warfare. Nor do the Israelis shoot down civilians in cold blood. Hamas, however, does kill civilians, whenever it has a chance — just as the world saw it do to 260 Israeli young people at the music festival on October 7.
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