HRW SPITS UP CROW ON GAZA BEACH EXPLOSION

CONTRARY TO MONDAY'S POSTING (HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH EATS "CROW" OVER GAZA BLAST), HRW IS NOT BACKING OFF FROM BLAMING ISRAEL FOR THE EXPLOSION THAT KILLED CIVILIANS ON THE BEACH IN GAZA. JUST THE OPPOSITE.

Rights group says Israel beach death probe not credible.
JERUSALEM (AFP) - A US-based rights group has accused Israel of ignoring evidence and conducting an incomplete investigation into the deaths of eight Palestinian civilians, demanding an international inquiry.

“The Israel Defence Forces’ (IDF) investigation of the Gaza beach explosion that killed eight Palestinian civilians and wounded dozens is incomplete because it excludes important evidence,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Wednesday.

The New York-based group released the statement Tuesday after meeting Meir Klifi, the general responsible for the army’s internal inquiry into the June 9 beach deaths.

“An investigation that refuses to look at contradictory evidence can hardly be considered credible,” said Marc Garlasco, a senior military analyst at HRW. “The IDF’s partisan approach highlights the need for an independent, international investigation.”

An Israeli army inquiry has cleared the military of any wrongdoing and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has rejected calls for an international investigation.

Human Rights Watch said the army’s conclusion that it was not responsible for the deaths was based “exclusively” on information gathered by the IDF and excluded all evidence gathered by other sources.

The group, which unlike the army conducted its own investigation at the scene of the deaths, believes that the blast was caused by an Israeli shell fired several hours earlier and which later exploded.

LGF SAYS IT ALL:

"Unbelievable. The Palestinians refused to allow the Israelis to investigate the scene at the time of the incident, and Human Rights Watch shill Marc Garlasco only got there several days afterward, giving the Palestinians more than enough time to alter the scene and plant false evidence. (Not that the scrupulously honest Palestinians would ever do such a thing, of course.) And none of these facts are reported."

SEE ALSO: Klifi: IDF definitely not behind Gaza beach blast.
The blast on a Gaza beach 12 days ago that killed seven Palestinian civilians was definitely not caused by IDF shelling, Maj.-Gen. Meir Klifi, head of the IDF inquiry commission announced at a news conference on Wednesday.

“The examination of a second piece of shrapnel retrieved from the body of a boy who was wounded in the blast unequivocally shows that the explosion was not caused by a 155 mm artillery shell”, said Klifi, adding that it came from a different type of ammunition used by the IDF.

Klifi said that the commission would continue to investigate what was behind the explosion. “There is a possibility that the explosion was caused by an unexploded IDF artillery shell that landed on the beach weeks or months ago and it is also possible that the blast was caused by an explosive device planted by Palestinian terrorist group,” he said.

SEE ALSO: PA Doctors Cut Victim Needlessly (LGF)
Not only did Palestinian doctors dig out every bit of reachable shrapnel from the victims of the Gaza beach explosion, they were apparently in such a rush (“militants” standing over their shoulders, perhaps?) to remove the evidence before turning the victims over to Israel (to save their lives) that they made unnecessary cuts.

Representatives of the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center (Ichilov) said on Tuesday that Ralia Niham, a 21-year-old woman who was seriously wounded in the Gaza beach explosion on June 9 that is at the center of a continuing controversy over who is to blame, suffered unnecessary cuts at the hands of the Palestinian doctors who treated her initially.

Niham, who regained consciousness at the hospital on Tuesday but remains in serious condition, suffered serious damage to her abdomen and upper limbs, with cuts all over her body, as a result of the surgical intervention performed on her at Shifa Hospital in Gaza, the hospital said.

The Tel Aviv hospital added that no shrapnel was found in the woman’s body except for one piece that is not reachable by surgery and will have to be left there. The damage to her body was “without doubt” caused by shrapnel; Israeli authorities say the chances are “one in a billion” that she was hurt by an Israeli missile.

In most cases, some shrapnel remains in the victim’s body and stays there for the rest of his or her life, the hospital said. The hospital stopped short of accusing Shifa’s doctors directly of removing shrapnel for no medical reason, but it did say that it had never received such a patient with all the reachable shrapnel removed.

“This is surprising and raises questions” about the care that Niham received in Shifa, the Sourasky spokeswoman said. Asked whether Sourasky surgeons had contacted Shifa doctors who treated the patient to ask the reason for the incisions to remove shrapnel, the spokeswoman said: “We are not in such close contact with Shifa. We received the medical report on the patient, and that’s all.”