Israel blames Hamas for beach deaths

The Israelis are claiming that a buried land mine was responsible for the deaths of seven members of a Palestinian family, including five children, and have attempted to lay the blame for this atrocity at the door of Hamas.

However, a former Pentagon analyst, sent by US human rights groups has said that the military had ignored evidence that left little doubt the family and an eighth casualty were killed by a stray Israeli shell.

"All the evidence points to the fact that it couldn't have been a mine," said Marc Garlasco, a former Pentagon adviser on battlefields who led the US military's battle damage assessment team in Kosovo and worked for its intelligence wing, the Defense Intelligence Agency.

"You have the crater size, the shrapnel, the types of injuries, their location on the bodies. That all points to a shell dropping from the sky, not explosives under the sand," he said.

What's extraordinary about the Israeli claims is that they admit that they were firing shells at that beach area but claim that their nearest shell would have fallen about 100 yards from where the family were killed.

I'm left gob smacked by this kind of hair splitting, but I suppose the Israelis want to put the best spin they can on this so that Olmert's tour of Europe is not overshadowed by this atrocity.

The army says an eight-minute gap between when the last shell was fired and when the Palestinians were killed means there is no connection. However, there is a dispute over the timings, with the Palestinian ambulance service logging an emergency call just before Israel says it stopped firing shells.

The army also says that aerial pictures of the blast crater show it is more likely to have been made by a mine under the sand than a explosion from above. But after investigating the scene, Mr Garlasco concluded that the army's explanation was deeply flawed. Among the new shrapnel he collected at the scene was a piece stamped with the figures: 155MM.

"The 155mm shell is what Israel uses in the howitzers that regularly shell northern Gaza," he said. "The Israelis have been postulating that it's a land mine. I've been to hospital and seen the injuries. The doctors say they are primarily to the head and torso. That is consistent with a shell exploding above the ground not a mine under it. If it were a mine or kids playing with an old shell you would expect severe leg injuries as well, even legs blown off."

This is not the first time that an Israeli government has lied for political expediency, the most notable being the Israeli government's denial that the IDF were in any way involved in the Sabra and Chatilla massacre. It was only when 400,000 Israelis took to the streets that the government agreed to form the Kahan commission which eventually concluded that Ariel Sharon had a "personal responsibility" for the massacre.

However, what I find most disturbing about this case is the timing of the shelling. Abbas was about to hold a Palestinian referendum on a two state solution which Hamas would have had to accept. Part of me always thought that this would give Hamas the excuse they needed to drop their long held objections to recognising Israel and that they would be able to say that they were "following the will of the people", hence saving themselves from any loss of face.

However, this atrocity has hardened stances on all sides and Hamas have now withdrawn from their fifteen month ceasefire with Israel and will refuse to accept the results of any referendum.

This plays directly into Olmert's hands as he has always wanted a unilateral solution to the border dispute.

Call me a conspiracy theorist if you want, but am I alone in thinking that the timing of this suits Olmert perfectly?

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