Tuesday, January 04, 2005

So which one is true, the Reuters account:

Moderate Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas called Israel "the Zionist enemy" for the first time on Tuesday after an Israeli tank killed seven Palestinian youths in a Gaza strawberry field....

Palestinian witnesses and medics in Beit Lahiya, a north Gaza village, said the militants had vanished by the time the tank shell crashed and all the dead were youths aged 11-17 from two farming families. Four people were critically wounded.


Or the Jerusalem Post account:

At a press conference Tuesday afternoon, Col. Avi Levi, commander of the Gaza District, confirmed that five Hamas members were killed in Beit Lahiya this morning...Palestinian medical sources reported that six people were also wounded in the attack. They also said that some of the dead where teenagers....

UPDATE: The NY Times decides via AP - Seven Palestinian Youths Are Killed in Israeli Counterattack

No mention of Col. Levi's claim that Hamas members were killed. The more detailed Palestinian description of what happened is also weird.

Soon after, an Israeli tank fired on a group of Palestinians believed responsible for launching the mortar rounds from farmland on the outskirts of Beit Lahiya, an Israeli military official said.

But Islam Aldaabalah, a 16-year-old who suffered multiple cuts to his face, arms and legs, said that he was among a group of laborers hit while they were working in the strawberry and potato fields, and that the militants had already left.

Mr. Aldaabalah said that he saw the militants fire mortars from the farm fields, and that an Israeli tank soon arrived and fired one shell, but did not hit anyone.

The militants hid behind a building until the tank left, then re-emerged and cut loose with additional mortars, he said. About 15 minutes later, a tank returned and fired a second shell, but the militants had left the area, leaving only the farmworkers, Mr. Aldaabalah said.

"We were just standing there when the shell came toward us. I was hurt and my friends were killed," he said from his bed at the Kamal Adwan Hospital.

So these kids were hanging out in a field near/from which people were shooting at each other with mortars and tanks? What normal person does that?





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