‘Hamas is using the Gaza population as human shields’

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“In the day’s deadliest violence, the Israeli navy fired at a home where it said a top wanted militant was hiding. The missile struck the home of the Daloo family in Gaza City, reducing the structure to rubble.

Frantic rescuers, bolstered by bulldozers, pulled the limp bodies of children from the ruins of the house, including a toddler and a 5-year-old, as survivors and bystanders screamed in grief. Later, the bodies of the children were laid out in the morgue of Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital.

Among the 11 dead were four small children and five women, including an 81-year-old, Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra said… Mr. Al-Kidra said 20 of 27 people killed Sunday were civilians, mostly women and children. Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, said that ‘the Israeli people will pay the price’ for the killing of civilians.

Israel sought to place the blame on militants, saying they were intentionally operating in places inhabited by civilians… ‘Hamas is using the Gaza population as human shields,’ said Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, the chief Israeli spokesman. ‘They are exploiting crowded residential urban areas.’

He acknowledged, however, that it was not clear whether the militant targeted in Sunday’s attack was killed, despite earlier claims of success. ‘I still don’t know what became of him,’ Gen.

Mordechai told Channel 10 TV… ‘In this case, you can’t avoid collateral damage if they position the rockets in densely populated areas, in mosques, school yards,’ said Israeli Vice Premier Moshe Yaalon. ‘We shouldn’t be blamed for the outcome.’

Avihai Mandelblit, a recently retired chief advocate general in the Israeli military, said that from a legal perspective, ‘there’s no immunity to anyone if you put weapons inside of civilian infrastructure.’ But he acknowledged the sight of dead civilians could create a public relations debacle for Israel.

‘As more civilians will get hurt, the legitimacy clock is going to click faster to end this operation,’ he said… ‘Israel has every right to expect that it does not have missiles fired into its territory,’ Mr. Obama said. Mr.

Hague also said Hamas ‘bears principal responsibility’ for initiating the violence, but made clear the diplomatic risks of an Israeli escalation.”

Context added by this archive

The headline is a quotation from the chief Israeli spokesman. Two paragraphs after he says it, the same spokesman says he does not know whether the man the strike was aimed at was killed.

Cite this clipping

"‘Hamas is using the Gaza population as human shields’," Santa Barbara News-Press, 19 November 2012, p. 1. Covering Palestine archive, CP-2012-002. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-2012-002

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How “human shields” changed sides in three years