The ability of Israeli leaders to tell lies is now legendary and pervasive - one could say 'Israel' is a country built on lies, and one whose status can only be maintained by covering those lies with more lies. In case some would say this is just words, and truth is relative, consider the simplest and most common statement - that Israel is a 'democracy'. A country that defines its national identity in terms of ethnicity and religion cannot possibly be 'democratic' for citizens of a different religion and race, whether they have an equal vote or not. And if 'Israel' were to commit to true democratic values then it could have no objection to a single state in which all citizens had equal rights - Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze and Atheists, "from the river to the sea". Despite this being the 'foundational lie' of the Zionist state - conceived thirty years before the United Nations declaration in 1948, it is now the daily lies necessary to maintain the appearance of legitimacy for the "Israel Project" that define the ongoing genocidal war on Gaza. Following the IOF's missile attack on the Tal al Sultan camp in Rafah, which threatened to finally force Israel to halt its push into Rafah, Israeli leaders concocted a variety of lies and excuses to cover their crime. True to his form as Israel's chief propagandist and bullshitter, defence spokesman 'Admiral' Daniel Hagari issued a statement the following morning, saying that: "The IDF is aware of reports indicating that as a result of the strike and fire that was ignited, several civilians in the area were harmed. The incident is under review." Those initial reports, visible within minutes in videos posted to social media, were of a catastrophic fire that enveloped the camp following airstrikes at 2 am, burning alive 45 mostly women and children and burning and injuring hundreds of others, as fire ignited plastic sheeting and wooden frames. It was an atrocity that spread around the world in seconds provoking global condemnation, particularly as it followed only a day after the ICJ's final warning to Israel on commission of genocide. The local reaction didn't hesitate to accuse Israel of intentionally committing this unspeakable crime: The Palestinian President's spokesman slammed the Israeli Occupation Army's deliberate targeting of the tents of displaced persons in Rafah in Southern Gaza, as a heinous massacre that exceeds all boundaries. As global condemnation spread and put more pressure on Israel to find an excuse for hitting an area that they declared safe only days earlier, Netanyahu declared the lethal fire was a "tragic mishap" - as if it were caused by a bolt of lightning. This theme of unfortunate collateral damage was then embroidered into a detailed story delivered by Hagari. What had happened he said, was that a precision missile was fired at two senior Hamas commanders and that this could not have been responsible for the fire that ensued; the missile "must have hit a Hamas weapons cache of which we were unaware, stored in the camp nearby". Below is a frame from video of the destroyed camp taken the following day showing some of the surroundings; judge for yourself:
Unsurprisingly, testimony from the ground tells a completely different story. Mondoweiss talked to witnesses in detail, including Nidal Al Attar: “As you can see with your eyes, here was a food clinic,” he tells Mondoweiss. “People cook here every day and feed the displaced people in the camp. The place has turned to ashes, as you can see.” “We came here based on the map published by the Israeli army,” he continues. “They told us to go to the Tal al-Sultan area, and here they are bombing us and bombing our food sources.” Nidal says that he and his family were sitting in their tent when they heard four missile strikes. He later learned that the missiles had directly hit the clinic, the water well, and the adjacent tents in which some food and cooking utensils were stored. Nidal and his neighbors in the displacement camp rushed to rescue the injured, but when he arrived, he was surprised by the horror before him. “We arrived at the place quickly, and the fire was still burning in the clinic and the neighboring tents. There were dozens of bodies and dead people, but we could not distinguish them from one another,” he says. “We did not know who had been burned. The bodies were completely disfigured and dismembered, and we were walking over the fire and the bodies in an attempt to get anyone out who was still alive.” It's worth noting that the detail and calmness of this witness reflects that of someone who has already seen more destruction, death and injury of innocent people than anyone should have to endure in their lifetime, but in a country where so many have been killed and injured it is the experience of all the people of Gaza.
The completely different reports on what happened to start the fire - which it must be added also resulted in the injury of over 200 people burnt or hit by shrapnel, and the traumatisation of thousands forced to flee the area - are not compatible. No reasonable and fair observer could accept the IOF's dismissive claim to have not been responsible - even if that were only the fault of firing a missile at an area knowing there were many civilians nearby. In accepting that there could be some culpability for this "tragedy", while refusing to consider it as an "atrocity", the New York Times Visual Investigations Unit published an analysis of the evidence recorded at the scene by local witnesses, and specifically on the parts of missiles found there, revealing their US origin:
While the NYT names the journalist who took the photos, it fails to mention exactly where these missile pieces were found, even though it notes that: "The bombs were dropped on sheds inside a camp for internally displaced people, and many tents were visible close by." Before the NYT published its report however - which conveniently allowed the White House to frame it as a 'tragic mishap' and imply it was Hamas' fault for hiding amongst the civilian population - Al Jazeera's Hind Al Khoudary had visited the site and seen the incriminating evidence herself, as shown in this extract from her news report on the 27th of May. She earlier mentions 'eight missiles', and there is clear evidence of multiple strikes directed at the crowded camp:
For its part, Hamas has denied that its men were present near the camp or killed in the strike, and took immediate action in response to the Israeli atrocity by cancelling all ongoing negotiations. Israel however merely responded by bluffing its way through and continuing its move into Rafah, taking over the sacrosanct 'Philadelphia corridor' between Gaza and Egypt, and launching further missile attacks on the refugee camp at Al Maghazi, where some of the people fleeing Rafah had gone. At time of writing, the atrocity at Tal Al Sultan has been more or less forgotten in the Western media, or papered over with renewed talk of ceasefire and hostage release negotiations, while the situation in all of Gaza deteriorates still further. The catalogue, and cataloguing of Israel's crimes by the rest of the world community continues however, so the concrete visual evidence of these crimes and cover-up exposed by Al Jazeera's brave journalists will not go unheeded. But the last word should go to the last frame of the video, showing a page from a burnt copy of the Quran. It seems to represent the spirit of the Palestinian people that survives everything thrown at it.
DM 2nd June 2024