11 Mart 2013 Pazartesi

Deadly Gaza strike on BBC man's house



Deadly Gaza strike on press member's house


The son of a BBC journalist and two relatives killed in last November's war in Gaza may have been hit by a misfired Palestinian rocket, a UN agency says.
The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said its conclusions were based on a visit to the site a month after the strike.
At that time, human rights groups accused the deaths on an Israeli air-strike.
The Israeli military says it never denied performing the strike because it was not clear what had happened.
The UN says 33 Palestinian children died in Israeli strikes during the conflict.
'Rubbish'
A photo of BBC video editor Jehad Mashhrawi cradling the corpse of his baby son Omar became one of the iconic images of this short war.
Omar was killed, along with an aunt and an uncle, after a missile hit the family home in Gaza.
It happened only 1 hour after Israel started its operation with the killing of Hamas's military commander.
The family, and human rights groups, said that the house was hit in an Israeli strike.
The Israeli military made no comment at the time of the incident but never denied performing the strike.
Privately, military officials briefed journalists that they had been targeting a militant who was in the building.
Now, though, the United Nations says the house may have been hit by a Palestinian rocket that fell short.
This is inspite of the fact that the Israeli military had reported no missiles being fired out of Gaza so soon after the start of the conflict.
UN officials visited the house 4 weeks after the attack.
They said they did not perform a forensic investigation, but said their team did not think the damage was consistent with an Israeli air strike.
However, the UN said it could not "unequivocally conclude" it was a misfired Palestinian rocket.
A UN official said it was also possible the house was hit by a secondary explosion after an Israeli air strike on Palestinian weapons stores.
Jehad Mashhrawi dismissed the UN findings as "rubbish".
He said nobody from the United Nations had spoken to him, and said Palestinian militant groups would usually apologise to the family if they had been responsible.
An Israeli military spokesman said he could not comment on the accuracy of the UN's findings but said it would not be the first time a Palestinian rocket had misfired.
He said that, in the intense first hours of the conflict, it was not always clear what was happening.
The UN report concluded that at least 169 Palestinians were killed by Israeli attacks during the offensive.
It said more than 100 were civilians, including 33 children and 13 women. The report said six Israelis were killed by Palestinians attacks, including four civilians.


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