IDF: Qana building fell hours after strike

[sabra]

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3283816,00.html

IDF: Qana building fell hours after strike

VIDEO - An IDF investigation has found that the building in Qana struck by the Air Force fell around eight hours after being hit by the IDF.

"The attack on the structure in the Qana village took place between midnight and one in the morning. The gap between the timing of the collapse of the building and the time of the strike on it is unclear," Brigadier General Amir Eshel, Head of the Air Force Headquarters told journalists at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, following the incidents at Qana.

Eshel and the head of the IDF's Operational Branch, Major General Gadi Eisnkot said the structure was not being attacked when it collapsed, at around 8:00 in the morning.

The IDF believes that Hizbullah explosives in the building were behind the explosion that caused the collapse.

...

"I'm saying this very carefully, because at this time I don't have a clue as to what the explanation could be for this gap," he added.

[54anickel]

1. Heh-heh. Lots of folks think a similar thing happened to the WTC

buildings. Wonder if Bushco will let this one fly?

[smacky44]

2. According to Lebanese PM Israel struck 57 times around the building

before bombing it directly. No matter how they try to shamefully spin this, the IDF killed those people. And who but Israel is saying that this time lapsed before the building collapsed?

[lindisfarne]

10. Do you have evidence that there were no Hezbollah explosives

involved? Israel's indiscriminate bombing isn't right, but I also don't see Hezbollah as so morally superior as to not bomb Lebanese civilians if it could gain them world support.

[David__77]

19. That is ludicrous, ridiculous logic.

There is no evidence that they DID. You cannot prove that they did NOT. It's like the Bushites saying, "prove Iraq did not have WMD's." That cannot be proven, and that's why that's their standard.

[lindisfarne]

21. No - I asked "Do you have evidence?". The initial statement implied

the person I replied to knew something about the relevant facts that the media doesn't seem to know ("The IDF killed ...").

However, as to the issue you have brought up: Hezbollah deliberately endangers Lebanese citizens by hiding their military supplies and munitions in towns and villages. They certainly don't have the survival of all Lebanese citizens uppermost in their strategy.

[Kailassa]

26. Can you prove the Loch Ness moster does not exist?

To be consistent, if you cannot, you must believe it does.

[lindisfarne]

65. I asked "Do you have evidence" not "Do you have proof". There is a huge

difference.

[AngryAmish]

88. Last week, Japanese scientists explaced...

placed explosive detonators at the bottom of Lake Loch Ness to blow Nessie out of the water. Sir Curt Godfrey of the Nessie Alliance summoned the help of Scotland's local wizards to cast a protective spell over the lake and its residents, and all those who seek a peaceful existence with our underwater ally.

[Tesha]

32. The woman NPR interviewed this morning seemed to think...

The woman NPR interviewed this morning seemed to think that the
building collapsed on her quite quickly after the first booms
of the bombs were heard, breaking her collarbone and trapping
her near the rest of her family, all of whom died.

She was eventually dug out the next morning.

Tesha

[LostinVA]

35. Well, it's obvious she's a liar

and was firing rockets from her building.

:sarcasm:

[Tesha]

37. No doubt she smashed her own collarbone...

Yeah.

No doubt she also mashed her own collarbone and killed
all her family members just in her effort to make the
IDF look bad.

Tesha

[LostinVA]

38. You got it -- it's obvious

[SOS]

47. Last night

Richard Engel, on NBC Nightly News, was reporting from the site of the missle attack in Qana.
He said there was absolutely no eveidence of any Hezbollah activity anywhere near the site of the civilian slaughter.
None.
No fighters, no rocket launchers, no bunkers, no shells, no guns...nothing.

All he saw were dead children being pulled from the bombed building.

As to the IDF lie that the building collapsed "later", that is also false.
Eight survivors were trapped in the rubble from the time of the attack (1 am) until rescue after sunrise. (Source NYT, 07/31/06)

[saigon68]

25. Israel is just one of two terrorist organizations at work here

They have an Air Force too.

[me b zola]

80. I can't prove that you are not beating your wife

:shrug:

[itzamirakul]

30. It is this constant Israeli leadership fact distortion, twisting and

outright lying that is so disgusting. I am just sick of the U.S. being led around by the nose by the Israeli Lobby in this country. We should be calling for a cease-fire but instead our government is giving Israel more time to murder innocent civilians under the guise of "degrading Hezbolla."

They are angry because Hamas was elected democratically.

Maybe Israel needs to take care of its own apartheid government first. No one can vote in Israel unless he is an Israeli. How long before that same voting restriction takes hold here in America? How long before a voter has to fit a certain description to be eligible?

Israel wants the West Bank with all of its natural resources, water et al, so that more Israelis can water their lawns, fill their swimming pools, and wash their cars. I am sick of being dragged into their battles over and over and over, ad nauseum.

[Phx_Dem]

61. Your post is utter BS

not even worth correcting all your propaganda.

[jahyarain]

64. why?

what part of that is propaganda?

[twiterpatted]

79. Define...."around".

[Scurrilous]

3. Lebanese villagers in Qana dispute this:

<snip>

"Lebanese villagers in Qana who were witness to the bombing, however, say that the building's collapse occurred in the wee hours of the night.

Witnesses at the scene corroborated the IDF claim that the strike on the building, which is located in the Hariva neighborhood of Qana, was carried out at 1:00 A.M. After the initial strike, some of the building's residents exited in an attempt to survey the damage, in effect saving themselves.

A few minutes later, IAF planes struck the building once again, causing the walls to collapse on the residents who did not vacate, killing them in the process."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/744332.html

[NoodleyAppendage]

4. Any organization that uses Orwellian language control isn't to be trusted.

IDF = Israeli Defense Force. What a crock of sh*t. Defending themselves from Lebanese children...I guess. ??

Yeah, I really have lots of confidence in their "internal" investigation.

J

[Show_Me _The_Truth]

60. Do you know what Hezbollah means?

Should apply it both ways.

[IndianaGreen]

5. This is what version number of IDF's bullshit?

Let me guess, the IDF is using the Pentagon to prepare their press releases, right? Well no wonder no one believes the IDF, NO ONE! Except for those that think that faith is more important than reason.

[Poll_Blind]

13. No idea, but they're into 3 digits for this recent mess alone. n/t

PB

[John Q. Citizen]

6. Naw, nobody would blow up there own buildings, especially not to

make another country or group look bad......

[Kailassa]

24. Oh? Are you one of those who did not think Israel's actions

looked bad enough already?

Whetever you believe about 9/11, I side firmly with the Bush government on this issue. There is no way Buschco would blow up the twin towers just to make Al Quada look bad if Al Quada had already been seen blowing up a dozen other buildings in the area.

[John Q. Citizen]

84. The bush government is completely illegitamte. He lost yet he grabbed

power. So the rest is kind of academic. He's a dictator.

[Recursion]

41. Thank you

Let's not let our anger at Israeli neocons blind us to the fact that Hezbollah are the neocons of the Shi'ite world. I wouldn't put any horror past either party, and tend to suspect the worst in any situation. Frankly, it would not surprise me to find out that Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Israeli right were all in cahoots to prevent peace, which is the one thing that would shut all of them down.

[John Q. Citizen]

85. Yes, extremists tend to thrive on chaos and violence. n/t

[KingFlorez]

7. They are such liars

[Poll_Blind]

15. Yep. n/t

PB

[Mr_Spock]

39. Agreed. They've learned from the best (American neocons)

This is such a farce.

Murderers.

[nealmhughes]

8. That's not what the eyewitnesses say.

They say the first direct hit was pretty bad, and several fled the bldg, then the second one hit and the entire structure collapsed into the basement where everyone had taken cover. I heard it from the BBC interview which was about 2 or 3 hours after the attack. The witness was speaking in Arabic and a translator was doing simultaneous translation into English and French.

[Canuckistanian]

9. Legally invalid argument

The IDF caused the damage that made the building collapse. The timing is irrelevant.

[Kailassa]

29. Yes. It reminds me of an argument yesterday in a bull-terrior thread.

An elderly woman, already terrified of the dogs next door, was working in her garden when they jumped over the fence and started mauling her. When police arrived, they had trouble getting the dogs off what little was left of her. But a coroner found she had a heart attack before the dogs had finished mauling her to death, so that proved the dogs and their owner were not so much to blame.

But at least even the dog-lovers never suggested she had mauled herself to make the dogs look bad, so at least that's something. :-)

[Recursion]

42. You really can't imagine...

...that Hezbollah would MIHOP a buidling collapse? You don't see that Hezbollah is the shrubco of the Shi'ite resistance? The sad fact is that WarChimp has remade the middle east in his image.

[Kailassa]

46. You must be kidding. Do you think they need to blacken Israel's

reputation? Perhaps you have not been following the news or looking at the pictures of whole neighbouhoods blasted to rubble, bombed cars full of families who did as they were told and tried to leave, and horribly burnt bodies.

If you want to see a country that acts like America, try looking at Israel.

[robbob]

57. Gee maybe Israel didn't do any of that...

Maybe all the bombing and destruction in Lebanon is just a huge ploy to blacken Israel's reputation...
:sarcasm:

[Kailassa]

63. Some here would gladly sell you that story.

I just wonder if they can keep straight faces while they're typing.

[w4rma]

11. Neo-con liars. (nt)

[superconnected]

12. Propaganda... and the US didn't bomb wedding parties - they actually

killed alquaida operative Zarquawi 5 times - not wedding guests(children). It was Zarquawi- and some of his followers standing next to him - All 5 times. Keep your propaganda straight!

The IDF has bomed lebanon for 3 weeks now - but they have killed NO civilians.

Understand that idiots, NONE. Because they say so. It must be the terrorists killing their own. Couldn't be the IDF. The fact that the IDF is bombing buildings is not supposed to be taken into account.

Random bombings do not kill children - only terrorists. Come on ppl, you should have memorized the tape by now .

[Poll_Blind]

14. K&R (as I recommend you all do) because this is more SHAMELESS...

...bald-faced lying and an especially bad example of it.

PB

[superconnected]

17. It's like they took it off of Fox news.

[me b zola]

81. or a memo from rove. n/t

[HuffleClaw]

16. cheap and horribly offensive RECYCLED excuses for the inexcusable

and of course SOME folks will manage to find a way to blame the 'bad guys'. 'hezbollah explosives' my ass. but they know some folks will hang on to that in their blind belief that the 'good guys' would NEVER do such a thing as slaughter civilians. i remember the exact same excuse came up when the americans bombed that civilian shelter in baghdad during the gulf war. 'oh, it must have really been saddam!' next will come the claim that hezbollah filled the building with dead bodies to blame the attack on israel. (that too was an excuse that arose when the americans bombed the shelter in baghdad. AND when they shot down that iranian airliner).

[IndianaGreen]

18. And to think that we trained the IDF PR officers at DINFOS

Did they forget everything they learned? Or did Bush change the training doctrine for military public affairs when he took power in 2001?

[LostinVA]

31. Some on this thread have already done so

They must be constantly dizzy from all the spinning they're doing...

[David__77]

20. War criminals cover up attempt.

Won't fly. Their guilt is clear. They will pay for their crimes.

[laheina]

22. This is shameless propaganda.

:cry:

[Name removed]

23. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Gully Foyle]

27. Sad

http://www.juancole.com/

Blanford reveals that Israeli warplanes actually continued to bomb the town while the rescue workers were pulling ragdoll-dead children out of the building. That's cold, man. Cold:


' An earth-mover ground down the lane and began clawing chunks of concrete away from the building. Even as the rescue team toiled to recover the dead, Israeli jets continued to roar overhead and the thump of air strikes and exploding artillery shells reverberated around the steep valley. '

[Gully Foyle]

28. Ok, now for the real

http://www.juancole.com/
That is why the massacre at Qana occurred. The Israelis had bombed Qana 80 times. They were destroying all of its buildings. Therefore, of course, they destroyed the building where dozens of children and families were hiding. This tactic is both collective punishment and ethnic cleansing all at once. It is not only a matter, as the Israelis claim, of hitting Hizbullah rocket launchers. They are destroying all of the buildings.

[smacky44]

33. Now there's that bridge in Brooklyn I am waiting to sell.

[AngryOldDem]

34. Always an excuse. Always, Never their fault. Never. n/t

[tabasco]

36. All I need is some cheese and bread.

I can make a bologna sandwich with the IDF version of events.

I see Israel has a destructive, lying, and corrupt regime just like the USA.

[KKKarl is an idiot]

40. Wow this sounds like

Hannity or Rush. I am sure they will be spinning this talking point way out of control today.

[warrens]

43. Snerk. It wasn't our missile, it was their EXPLOSIVES

Why, our missiles are so well-behaved, they would have hardly cracked a window, much less killed 50 women and children. They're very SENSITIVE missiles and are trained to just pop out a sign saying BOOM when they detect the presence of civilians. Everybody is always picking on us. There's just no justice.

[Useless in FL]

44. Why would people stay in the building for 8 hours?

Sheesh ..... Why would 60+ people stay for 8 hours in a building that's been hit? :grr: I guess they really we're so naive to believe that...

[ShortnFiery]

49. According to one witness, they were poor and broke ...

after the first few bombs hit, they went to where they THOUGHT might be shelter. :(

[alcibiades_mystery]

52. So their first choice was an already bombed building full of explosives?

:rofl:

[ShortnFiery]

53. You assume facts not in evidence, and I don't find this topic humorous

few people do who have an ounce of compassion. :thumbsdown:

[alcibiades_mystery]

59. I find outlandish nonsense humorous

no matter the topic.

[ShortnFiery]

62. To each his / her own. eom

[newyorican]

45. GOI Excuse Version 3.0

:puke:

[FormerDem06]

48. Hezbollah needs to get out of Surburbia if they really care about Lebanese

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,,19955774-5007220,00.html

==========================================================================================

The images, obtained exclusively by the Sunday Herald Sun, show Hezbollah using high-density residential areas as launch pads for rockets and heavy-calibre weapons.

Dressed in civilian clothing so they can quickly disappear, the militants carrying automatic assault rifles and ride in on trucks mounted with cannon.

The photographs, from the Christian area of Wadi Chahrour in the east of Beirut, were taken by a visiting journalist and smuggled out by a friend.


============================================================================================

The Israeli's will bomb anything, yet the fighters still use apartment houses and residential areas for human shields. I sure wish they'd learn and head for the hills or Syria for a while.

[progressivebydesign]

56. "formerdem".... interesting.

Umm.. trying to blame someone else for Israel's killing of hundreds of innocents is odd at best. A better thought would be that maybe Israel should so come cajones and fight these terrorists hand to hand, rather than bombing suburbia. And the bullshit line that Israel sent fliers out to tell these people to leave is laughable. Israel made sure they bombed all routes out of the areas. This entire thing reminds me of Katrina, and how many republicans blamed the poor for not leaving N.O., when it was clear they had no way out. Put blame where it belongs... Israel didn't HAVE TO bomb the suburbs. The terrorists in Lebanon are a problem but they did NOT fire the first salvo here, and Israel's response was psychotic in relation to the kidnapping of two soldiers.

And why isn't anyone mentioned the simultaneous attacking of Gaza that is going on right now? Hundreds of innocents have been killed there recently, as well.

[superconnected]

66. "bombing suburbia"

Excellent line. That's exactly what they're doing!

[hoboken123]

68. Clarification please

"The terrorists in Lebanon are a problem but they did NOT fire the first salvo here..."

What does this mean?

[Marie26]

50. The IDF really needs

to improve their propaganda, because this is sort of pathetic. Maybe Bush & Co. can help them set up a WHIG group, or hire a good PR firm.

[alcibiades_mystery]

51. Preposterous

I wonder if the Israelis have contests on who can come up with the most outlandish explanation for Israeli wrongdoing. This latest whopper would certainly make the top ten.

[Jim__]

54. The IDF's analysis: It was hezbollah's fault.

Yeah, that's credible.

[Jim__]

55. Self-delete.

[The Stranger]

58. Same pattern as later story that the bombed UN post was "shielding" Hez.

Muddy the waters. Confuse and exploit. Continue the murdering.

[PaDem]

67. Israel has no more credibility than Hezbollah..............

this is becoming surreal.

[outofbounds]

69. If there are planes dropping bombs

in my state, I'm taking my family and leaving the area. Even if we have to walk. This has been going on for three weeks, why would they stay there? Is it possible they aren't allowed to leave? Poor or not I would walk away.

[Scurrilous]

70. The families in the building could not afford to leave the area:

<snip>

"According to survivors of the strike, two extended families had taken shelter in the building. The survivors said that the Shalhoub and Hashem families remained in the building because they were unable to afford the cost of traveling north. The families also assumed that the Israeli drones that were patrolling the skies above the village had seen that the building was occupied by numerous children.

The survivors spoke of two bombings - one at 1 A.M., and the second some 10 minutes later. However, what appeared to the survivors as a second bombing may have been the sound of the building coming down. None of the survivors said that the building only collapsed several hours later.

Ibrahim Shalhoub described how he and his cousin had left to find help following the strike on the building. "It was dark and there was lots of smoke," he said. "No one could do anything until morning. I could not stop crying; I couldn't help them."

The fact that the Red Cross in Tyre was informed of the incident only in the morning is another reason why assistance was late in arriving. The director of the Red Cross office in the city, Sami Yazbek, said that he received word of the incident only at 7 A.M. The ambulances dispatched to the area were further delayed by the damaged roads, Yazbek said."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/744783.html

[outofbounds]

71. I know they are poor,

but like I said, gather some supplies and leave. That is why I think they were forced to stay in the town. Were there any men in the building?

[Scurrilous]

72. Yes, there were men present.

Mohamed Shalhoub lost his mother, his wife, their five children and a nephew in the collapse of a building his family had been hiding in.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/31/world/middleeast/31scene.html?_r=1&hp&ex=1154318400&en=8ff67d99b9d3fb3c&ei=5094&partner=homepage&oref=slogin

<snip>

"But leaving southern Lebanon now is dangerous. The two extended families staying in the house that the Israeli missile struck — the Shalhoubs and the Hashims — had discussed leaving several times over the past two weeks. But they were poor — most worked in tobacco or construction — and the families were big and many of their members weak, with a 95-year-old, two relatives in wheelchairs and dozens of children. A taxi north, around $1,000, was unaffordable.

And then there was the risk of the road itself.

Dozens, including 21 refugees in the back of a pickup truck on July 15, have been killed by Israeli strikes while trying to evacuate. Missiles hit two Red Cross ambulances last weekend, wounding six people and punching a circle in the center of the cross on one’s roof. A rocket hit the ambulance convoy that responded in Qana on Sunday.

“We heard on the news they were bombing the Red Cross,” said Zaineb Shalhoub, a 22-year-old who survived the bombing. She was lying quietly in a hospital bed in Tyre.

“What can we do with all of our kids?” she asked. “There was just no way to go.”

[outofbounds]

73. Its a damn shame.

[Sretto]

75. I'll bet...

the Jews stole their shoes...

[me b zola]

82. What are you talking about?

What are you saying?

[LostinVA]

77. Who cares if men were present?!

And, seriously, have some compassion for these people and quit blaming them. They did NOTHING wrong.

Geez.

[LostinVA]

76. Blaming the victim argument -- just like Katrina

They could have left. There own fault if they drowned or suffered in any way. They could have walked... they knew a hurricane was coming and the levees were weak.

[outofbounds]

87. I was curious

If there are no or very few men injured in this are they part of Hezbolla? If it takes 8 hrs or even 10 minutes for that building to collapse why would you still be inside of it. Even if I had to split my family up, I would have to keep them safe. If we are alive we can find each other, maybe not today or tomorrow but eventually we will.

Its odd you mention Katrina, we have a new tropical storm this morning, Chris. It's a long way, a week from here but guess what, we are in the predicted path right now. If that changes, for us, that would be good. If it tracks to the middle upper half of that projected path, we have to leave. We have to choose our fate. So yes I think about situations and how to survive them when and even before the situation arises.

The only thing this has in common with Hurricane Katrina is the Government let down its people. But Nagen did say to his people this year, your own your own.

[kineneb]

83. but what if that meant leaving Grandma behind?

And all the small children who could not walk long distances? Looks like that was the case here, and no doubt in many other places. The families decided to stay together. Unfortunately, they also died together. The poorest and weakest become the ultimate losers, again.

[ProgressiveCritic]

74. Just like the Gazan family killed on the beach?

Was really killed by Palestinian explosives?

Sounds like this BS is all churned out by the same propaganda department.

[number6]

78. Qana building fell hours after strike

so what ?? buildings fall sooner or later after being bombed
so it proves what ?

[magellan]

86. Shameless propaganda

Here's the UK Guardian's account by witnesses:

It was an unremarkable three-storey building on the edge of town. But for two extended families, the Shalhoubs and the Hashems, it was a last refuge. They could not afford the extortionate taxi fares to Tyre and hoped that if they all crouched together on the ground floor they would be safe.

They were wrong. At about one in the morning, as some of the men were making late night tea, an Israeli bomb smashed into the house. Witnesses describe two explosions a few minutes apart, with survivors desperately moving from one side of the building to the other before being hit by the second blast. By last night, more than 60 bodies had been pulled from the rubble, said Lebanese authorities, 34 of them children. There were eight known survivors.

snip

The house stood at the top of a hillside on the very edge of Qana and its disembowelled remains had spilled down the slope.

Hours later, when rescuers had the morning sun to start digging in earnest, it wouldn't be unusual for part of a devastated house to collapse further. But there is no argument about what destroyed it and killed the occupants.

The strike that destroyed the building was a precision-guided bomb dropped from the air, the same kind of bomb that destroyed a UN position in Khiyam last week, killing four UN observers. Writing on an olive green fragment of the munition which appeared to have caused the explosion read: GUIDED BOMB BSU 37/B.

A fragment of the US-Made Bomb read:
"FOR USE ON MK-84 GUIDED BOMB BSU-37/B"

This photo is not from the Guardian site. I found it at this site. (WARNING: graphic photos further down the page.) Don't trust that's a real photo from Qana? It's also in Google's cache from the St. Petersburg Times July 30 photo gallery.

The part BSU-37/8 is a stabilizer unit for the MK-84, a 2000 lb, laser-guided bomb.

It's disgusting that Israel are trying to shift the blame off themselves. Disgusting.