Hurray For Pallywood--At Gaza Beach

YNet News reports that a German daily newspaper, Sued Deutsche, is reporting that there are questions surrounding the Palestinian version of what on the Gaza beach just over a week ago--even as the British papers the Guardian, Independent, Times newspapers publish findings casting doubt on Israel's claims.

The newspaper interviewed Zakaria Abu Irbad--a cameramen with the Palestinian independent news agency Ramattan, who filmed Hadil Ghalia crying over the body of her dead father--but he evaded most of the questions addressed to him.

Among the questions that the German newspaper raised:

• In the footage taped by an IDF drone during the attack, you can see five craters left by IDF artillery shells, but 250 meters away people could also be seen--but no one is seen running away or showing any signs of fear.
  
  
• Irbad told the German newspaper that paramedics told him about what had happened and took him to the scene--but there are no paramedics on the scene until later in the footage, apparently indicating that Irbad was actually the first on the scene.
  
  
• And if Irbad was the first one there, why were most bodies covered by sheets--who was there before to cover the bodies?
  
  
• According to Irbad, that reason that Hadil Ghalia was not injured, is because she was swimming--but the footage he took shows here fully clothed and dry.
  
  
• The newspaper notes that there is a shot of a man carrying a rifle next to the dead body of Hadil's father--but in earlier footage, the same man can be seen lying on the beach along with the injured.
  
  
• Irbad's footage shows paramedics in green clothes and a dozen bearded men looking for evidence on the beach--but the question is whether those are Hamas affiliates and why they were preoccupied with collecting evidence instead of helping the injured.
  
  
• Irbad said the reason he filmed Hadil istead of trying to calm her is that: "She asked me to film her. She wanted to be seen next to her father to show the world the crimes that Israel is committing."--but the newspaper asks, "Did the shocked 10-year-old girl, who had lost her father minutes earlier, give the cameraman direction instructions?"

Not only do the questions raised by the newspaper tend to discredit the Palestinian claim that Israel was responsibile, but they also raise the possibility that the scene was staged in order to hold Israel responsible.

The other Ynet article about the British papers casting doubts on the Israeli version of what happens rely on the Palestinian account of what happened as well as the opinion of Marc Garlasco--

a former Pentagon battlefield expert investigating for Human Rights Watch, who claimed last week that "all the evidence" pointed to the deaths being caused by a 155mm land-based artillery shell.

Soccer Dad notes some holes in the supposed expertise of Garlasco and points to a post on Israpundit entitled The Incredible Marc Garlasco--which leads one to believe that Mr. Garlasco may not be so credible at all.

Powerline points to Judith Klinghoffer's Deja Vu where she quotes from a doctor who recovered shrapnel from one of the injured:

Dr. Michael Bayme wrote his friends:

Some of you may have been following the tragic story of a Gazan family that was destroyed by some sort of bomb last friday. The world of course chose to blame Israel - without verifying any facts. The fact that Israel immediately accepted all the victims to its hospitals was seen as an admission of guilt, and not as a humanitarian gesture.

There is now incontrovertible proof that Israel did not cause the tragedy - shell fragments extracted from one bomb victim match the types of bombs made by Hamas - and not Israeli artillery shells. How do I know? I received the victim last Sunday (at 2:00 am), operated on her until 5am, and have re-operated every night since. Now she's out of danger, and will survive to rejoin her family.

But does anyone doubt that the Palestinian myth of what happened that day will follow in the footsteps of the the myth of Mohamed Al Dura?

See also: More On Gaza Beach (June 20)
See also: Human Rights Watch / Garlasco Admit Israel Not Responsible (Updated) (June 20)
See also: Will Israel Go To The Videotape? (June 26)


Crossposted at Israpundit

Technorati Tag: Israel and Gaza and Hadil Ghalia and Marc Garlasco.