Casualties at UN school in Gaza - Jan 7, 2009

Ann wrote:

As you have probably heard by now, a UN school in Gaza was hit by Israel
yesterday. It was
a tragedy. No one disputes that. And the death of children is even more
tragic.

How did this happen? School in Gaza, like in southern Israel, has not been in
session
since the war began Classes were not in session at the time the school was
hit. The
building should have been empty. However, a few hundred people had evidently
taken refuge
inside the school, and that is why there were so many civilian casualties.


The reason the school was targeted is that it was being used by Hamas to fire
mortars at
Israeli troops. Over the period of two hours, several rounds were fired. The
IDF has
the battle footage to prove this. The decision to fire on the school building
(not
realizing that it was full of refugees) was taken in order to eliminate the
source of
mortar fire which was endangering Israeli soldiers. And for at least two
months before
the war started, Israel officially complained to Hamas about the use of this
particular
school to fire rockets from.


Hamas has also continuously used schools in Gaza to store munitions in, and to
fire rockets
from. Below is a short clip taken in 2007.

_Weapons_Du
mp>
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/32368_UN_School_Used_by_Terrorists_As_a_
Weapons_Dump


Reports from several sources have also stated that Hamas is forcing families in
Gaza to
shelter them, or they throw people out of their homes if they decide to use them
as a
defensive position. Most of the humanitarian aid which has gone in to Gaza has
never
reached the civilian population.


Israel has never deliberately targeted a civilian population. The same cannot
be said of
Hamas. All of their targets in the past few years have been civilian. They
are even now
calling for Moslems around the world to attack "Israeli, Jewish and western"
targets around
the world. I have lost track of how many Israeli schools and kindergartens
have been hit
by Hamas rockets over the years. Hamas repeatedly targets Israeli city
centers, schools
and residential homes. They do not target military targets.


British police have reported over twenty attacks on Jewish targets in Britain
during the
first 10 days of the war. Two days ago a car bomb exploded outside of a
synagogue in
France, and yesterday another French synagogue was fire-bombed. These are
Jewish civilian
targets, not Israeli military targets. In the eyes of Hamas there is no
difference.


A