As the cleanup in Gaza continues from last weekend’s brief conflict with Israel, another battle has continued over which side caused the casualties, after Israel said misfiring rockets from the Palestinian side killed 15 people in the enclave.
According to Israeli military authorities, a fifth of the more than 1,000 rockets fired towards Israel failed, many plunging to earth in Gaza where they caused a third of the 44 deaths recorded there during the 56-hour battle, when Israeli jets pounded the narrow coastal strip.
The Israeli military supplied videos and radar images which it said showed an Islamic Jihad rocket veering off course soon after being launched on Saturday, heading to the ground where they said it killed five people including four children.
Both Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, and Islamic Jihad, the Iranian-backed militant group that Israel targeted with its air strikes, denied the Israeli accounts and blamed Israel for all the deaths in Gaza. But an Islamic Jihad spokesman said it was conducting an investigation.
“Israel began the military round and therefore it bears responsibility for all the results of that military round,” said spokesman Daoud Shehab.
“We are investigating all the reports and all the cases that are being cited by media outlets,” he said. He added that some claims had already been proved incorrect but gave no details.
“These are wrong and false allegations Israel is making to escape its responsibility for the killing of civilians and children,” he said.
Read the article by James MacKenzie in Sight Magazine.