I just came home from my synagogue and had breakfast. Then I turned on the TV and found the world media all dealing with casualties at a Gazan hospital, something I heard about last night before going to bed.
So What’s the story? I’ve posted before that no newsroom wants to be eft out of an important story, and Hamas wants this to be a big story. Right after it occurred (last night, around 8 PM) Hamas propagandists released a report claiming an Israeli air attack hit the hospital and killed some 400 people A later report revised the death toll down to 200 . (Actual dead appears to be about 20) In the absence of other news even some Western media picked up the story. This morning, France 24 (Their English language TV) ran sub headers with ALL the reports, separately, being featured.
Meanwhile, Hamas (and Iran) were busy orchestrating “popular” demonstrations about the incident and attacking Western embassies in Islamic countries.
But what REALLY happened? The Palestine Islamic Jihad terror group (PIJ) had launched a barrage of rockets aimed at Tel-Aviv. It was timed to coincide with the start of most Israeli news summaries at 8PM. PIJ isn’t known for technical expertise. As many as a quarter of their home made rockets fail to get anywhere near their intended targets. In the past, many of them even failed to get out of the Gaza strip. This was one of them. Israel monitors rocket launches and this one was filmed lifting off, and failing, it followed a ballistic path for a few seconds, and then plunged straight down. That’s what hit the hospital. Incidentally, at that time there were no Israeli aircraft in the immediate vicinity.
But Hamas controls all media reporting from inside Gaza. They decided to amplify the story and continue to blame Israel. In America, FOX news got the story right. I have a book on my shelf about war-correspondents. The title is “Truth, the First Casualty”.
Wetherhorn 