The IDF has announced that the Gazan family that was killed during a battle Monday north of Beit Hanoun was not the direct victim of an IDF attack but rather, of explosive charges carried by Arab terrorists. However, an IDF officer has been assigned to investigate the incident more fully and is expected to present his findings Wednesday.
"The responsibility for the casualties among Palestinian civilians rests upon the shoulders of Hamas, which operates under cover of the civilian population while endangering it by holding bomb-making and explosive materials in its midst," the IDF Spokesman said following Arab reports about the death of a woman and her four children from Israeli fire.
The IDF Spokesman said that in the course of activity in the Beit Hanoun area, an IAF aircraft attacked two armed terrorists who were identified near the IDF forces. The two, who were near the house where the woman and her children were staying at the time, carried large knapsacks on their backs. When the two were hit, a large explosion occurred, evidence that that the two had been carrying a large amount of explosives and bombs in the knapsacks. As a result, a large explosion occurred next to the house where the civilians were located.
Barak: Hamas is responsible
Defense Minister Barak also blamed Hamas for the incident during a tour of the Israel Military Industries. "We see Hamas as being responsible for everything that goes on in the Gaza area, for all of the casualties. Hamas is also responsible for some of the civilian casualties, the ones who are not involved in the fighting, who are hurt in the course of these operations, as a result of the fact that it operates from within civilian concentrations, and by planting and holding explosive charges among the civilian population."
The Arabs claimed that Israeli fire killed five members of one family: a mother and four children aged 5, 4, 3 and 1. The Arabs also said a 17-year-old youth was killed. A source within the Islamic Jihad terror group confirmed that one of its gunmen, Ibrahim Jahjouh, 23, was killed.
News wire photographs that were featured prominently in Israel and outside of it showed the small bodies of the children who were killed and news reports were quick to blame Israel for the deaths. MK Ibrahim Sarsur (Ra'am-Ta'al) said that "Israel proves every day that its army is the foremost competitor of Nazism and that it carries out an ideology of destruction, just like in humanity's worst periods." Sarsur accused Israel of "cold-bloodedly wiping out an entire family, including its innocent children."
Similar incidents in the past were used to pressure Israel to halt large scale IDF operations in Gaza as well as in Lebanon. These included Operation "Grapes of Wrath" in 1996 and the Second Lebanon War in 2006.
Lower civilian death ratio
"We make great efforts to avoid hitting civilians," an IDF source said. "These efforts are expressed in the IDF's tactics of warfare, in armaments and in strict operating procedures. Many attacks have been cancelled because of proximity to civilian concentrations. We regret that Hamas has no qualms about risking civilians by operating among them and creating a false impression that Israel is the one endangering them."
IDF statistics show that in 2007, the ratio of terrorist to civilian casualties was 39 dead gunmen for every innocent civilian killed. In 2006 this ratio was 5 to 1 and in 2005 it was 4 to 1.
Three IDF soldiers from the Givati Brigade were lightly injured in the fighting in Beit Hanoun. One was hit in the leg during a firefight. Another was hit in the hand and a third was very lightly wounded from shrapnel when terrorists fired an anti-tank missile at an IDF armored vehicle. Terrorists fired dozens of mortar shells and anti-tank missiles at the IDF.