Gaza civilians afraid to leave home after bombing of ‘safe routes’
Analysis of aerial photos and social media posts confirms attack on road identified as safe by Israeli army
A convoy of vehicles carrying fleeing civilians in Gaza that was hit by a deadly airstrike was travelling on one of the two roads identified by the Israeli army as “safe routes” to the southern half of the strip, according to analysis.
The Friday afternoon bombing in Gaza City, which killed a reported 70 people, including children, and which Hamas blamed on Israel, occurred on Salah-al-Din Road, a main thoroughfare in the overcrowded enclave, home to a trapped population of 2.3 million people.
The Forensic Architecture investigative unit at the Palestinian human rights organisation, al-Haq, used aerial photos and social media posts to geolocate the site of the strike, sharing its findings with the Guardian. The BBC’s Verify unit came to the same conclusion.
Video and pictures of the aftermath of the attack show 12 dead bodies, most of whom are women and children, the youngest about two years old, and several damaged vehicles.
The Palestinian health ministry said that 70 people were killed on the road, which was filled with traffic as Palestinians tried to adhere to Israeli orders given early on Friday to evacuate the northern half of Gaza.
Shadows and the position of the sun suggest the attack on the civilian convoy occurred at about 5.30pm. At 6.03pm, in social media posts, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) identified the exact same road in an infographic as the safe route to follow the Israeli evacuation directive for about half of the strip’s population to travel south of the Gaza River, which is just south of Gaza City.
Conflicting timeframes for safe passage communicated by the IDF, and the bombing of Salah al-Din Road, a supposedly safe route, have led many people still in northern Gaza to conclude it is not safe to leave their homes.
The IDF declined to comment on the specifics of the incident on Friday. It said: “The IDF follows international law and takes feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm, including specific actions taken yesterday and today to urge civilians to relocate towards southern Gaza.”
Israel has also blamed Hamas, the militant group that controls the strip, for preventing the population from leaving: the militants have urged residents to “hold on to your homes and land”.
The bolded part is the only direct mention of who is to blame in the article and even then it is using the new afterthought method, "...and which HAMAS BLAMED ON ISRAEL". Like there could be some thirdy party with an air force just hanging around on the off chance of getting to bomb evacuating women and children.
Also note how they submerge it with "fact checker and geo-location" blabber rather than just presenting it as established fact to give the impression that anything critical of the beloved apartheid state has to be examined in triplicate before it can possibly be reported.
Utterly disgusting.
I would image the IDF are concocting their "There were Hamas fighters in the convoy" fairy tale as we speak....no amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party...So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin.
Thanks. Graun fighting the info war for Israhell. Duplicitous at the extreme
I think the public in the West is being 'groomed' for more wars ahead, wars that'll be truly barbarous. We'll be 'fighting dirty' and throwing all those old-fashioned ideas about the rules of war and human rights, out of the window. As the Palestinians are being painted as brutal animals, wiping them out in Gaza, is an important stage in this process. We are all... genocidal now.
An addendum, if you like, this genocide has not stopped for the 20 odd years during Gaza's existence. Unpeople forgotten by rlo (rules-based-order). Normal state of the affairs, apparently.
Not forgetting all the other wars waged by the Empire for the last 78 years (neglecting the Monroe's doctrine 1823 onwards hehe).