Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer and Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz made separate remarks Thursday that they would have aborted the Nablus attack, in which eight Palestinian were assassinated, had they known children were in the targeted area, according to Israeli press reports.
The Tuesday attack on the well-populated residential area killed five Hamas leaders who were meeting at a research center in a civilian block of flats. A journalist interviewing the Islamists and two children in the neighborhood were also killed.
At least 100 children have been killed by Israeli fire since the outbreak of the Intifada 10 months ago, according to Amnesty International.
In October, Israeli soldiers killed 12-year-old Mohammad Ad Durra as his father tried to shelter him from a rain of bullets. The killing was captured on TV cameras and broadcast all over the world.
While Ben Eliezer said that the killing of the two children was “a mishap,” Mofaz described his occupation army as “the most moral army in the world.”
Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other watchdog groups have on more than one occasion presented documented proof that Israeli soldiers have repeatedly opened fire on unarmed demonstrators, killing them in situations where the occupation forces were in no danger.
Since the September 2000 eruption of the latest Palestinian uprising against 34 years of Israeli military occupation, the media has reported that Palestinians have killed at least 128 Israelis with weapons ranging from stones and knives to machineguns and car bombs. Israeli military sources have reported well over 600 injuries to Israelis of Jewish descent.
In the same time period, according to international media reports, Israeli soldiers and armed Jewish settlers have killed 13 Arab Israelis and 538 Palestinians with weapons ranging from machineguns and tanks to US-made Apache helicopter gunships and F-16s. In addition, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society has reported over 14,000 Palestinians wounded.
Jewish author Noam Chomsky, who according to a New York Times Book Review article is “arguably the most important intellectual alive,” has been quoted as saying: “State terrorism is an extreme form of terrorism, generally much worse than individual terrorism because it has the resources of a state behind it.” – Albawaba.com
