Reply #26: Israel: Gaza Beach Investigation Ignores Evidence

[Scurrilous]

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"The Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) investigation of the Gaza beach explosion that killed eight Palestinian civilians and wounded dozens is incomplete because it excludes important evidence, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch researchers met yesterday with Israeli Major-General Meir Kalifi, who led the internal IDF investigation, to discuss its findings. After the meeting, Human Rights Watch reiterated its call for an independent investigation into the deaths. The meeting revealed that the IDF's conclusion that it was not responsible for the deaths on the beach was based exclusively on information gathered by the IDF and excluded all evidence gathered by other sources. Its investigation centered on mathematical models said to show a "statistical impossibility" that a shell fired by IDF artillery was responsible for killing the civilians. The reliability of such a conclusion should be evaluated by independent experts with access to the underlying data.

"An investigation that refuses to look at contradictory evidence can hardly be considered credible," said Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch. "The IDF's partisan approach highlights the need for an independent, international investigation."

Kalifi told Human Rights Watch that Palestinians "have no problem lying," and that the IDF discounted information gathered from any Palestinian information sources in its investigation. The day after the incident, the IDF asked the official Palestinian security liaison office to provide evidence for testing, but later dismissed the evidence provided, which consisted of 155mm shrapnel, both new and old, and dirt from the beach and crater. When offered evidence collected first-hand by Human Rights Watch researchers in Gaza, the general either called it into question or declined to accept it.

The IDF also dismissed as "unimportant" evidence gathered by Human Rights Watch indicating that the IDF's suggested timeline surrounding the fatal incident is flawed. Yet, the IDF originally claimed that the timing of the incident was the most important factor absolving it of responsibility. According to the IDF, the eight civilians were killed after the IDF shelling ceased at 4:50 p.m. on June 9, 2006.

However, evidence collected by Human Rights Watch researchers and many independent journalists on the ground in Gaza indicates that the civilians were killed within the time period of the shelling. That evidence includes computerized hospital records that show children injured at the beach were treated by 5:12 p.m., and hand-written hospital records that show they were admitted at 5:05 p.m. In light of the 20-minute round trip drive between the hospital and the beach, this evidence suggests that the blast that caused the family's death occurred during the time of the IDF shelling."


http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/HRW/8e410a1bf9a51a80af52b8e0c634187c.htm