JERUSALEM, Nov. 20 -- The Israeli military gave journalists incorrect information last month about a helicopter attack on a Gaza Strip refugee camp in which at least 10 Palestinians were killed and more than 55 injured, the military chief of staff said in a statement released late Wednesday.
Sources said the commander of the air force, Maj. Gen. Dan Halutz, gave inaccurate information in an Oct. 21 briefing for Israeli military correspondents, apparently in an effort to avoid revealing details about Israeli operational techniques and equipment that could be useful to Palestinian militants. The information at issue centered on the types of missiles fired and military methods used in the engagement, according to the sources, who spoke on condition they not be identified.
Relatives mourn a Palestinian man killed in an Oct. 20 attack by Israeli forces on the Nuseirat refugee camp. Israel admits giving the wrong details about the attack.
(Mahmud Hams -- AFP)
|
|
Senior air force officials previously had said that the two missiles fired during the Oct. 20 nighttime attack at the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza were so small they were incapable of causing a large number of casualties. They accused Palestinian witnesses and officials of lying and inflating the number of dead and injured.
The statement Wednesday, citing "security sensitivity," did not specify which part of the initial report on the operation was incorrect. In addition, Israeli journalists and lawmakers familiar with the facts of the case were prohibited by government censors from divulging the details of the false information.
According to Israeli media accounts Thursday, Halutz told Israeli reporters that the two missiles were Hellfires -- laser-guided missiles made in the United States -- when he knew they were not. In a separate briefing for foreign reporters, including one from The Washington Post, another air force official refused to identify the type of missiles that were fired.
The sources said the Israeli military now maintains that the missiles that were fired were not significantly more powerful or destructive than Hellfires and would not have caused more casualties.
But the issue has added to the controversy over the military and its tactics in responding to the Palestinian uprising.
The air force was sharply criticized in September, when 27 current and former pilots signed a public pledge to boycott missions over Palestinian civilian areas. Israeli news media have reported several other cases of pilots refusing to obey direct orders to drop bombs or fire missiles at Palestinian targets because of the potential for civilian casualties.
"The question is: Is the IDF allowed to lie -- not to stay silent, but to lie -- regarding the details of any operation to the press, and expect afterward that anybody will believe them?" said Nahum Barnea, a leading Israeli newspaper columnist, referring to the Israel Defense Forces. "We are living in 2003, and the truth doesn't matter anymore. It's not the censorship that's the problem. It's the lying, the coverup. It's a big scandal, and it's a big problem for the army and the people."
In a vaguely worded statement issued Wednesday, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, the military chief of staff, said that when reporters were briefed in October, "it was not possible to give full details regarding the incident . . . due to field security and operational concerns, and in order not to compromise vital security details."
"Perhaps, due to the operational and security sensitivity of the matter at hand, we erred in the way we chose to define the operational means we used," the statement said. "It is important to stress that there was no intention to mislead."
Israeli military officials would not elaborate on the statement.
The incident in Nuseirat was one of five attacks launched on Oct. 20 against Palestinian targets in Gaza. In the attacks and related operations, at least 15 Palestinians were killed and more than 100 were injured, according to Palestinian hospital records.
The attack in Nuseirat was the most deadly. It began when Israeli soldiers killed two Palestinian militants who were trying to sneak up to the border fence to plant a roadside bomb. An Israeli AH-64 Apache helicopter followed the car that had dropped off the militants. When the car reached Nuseirat, the helicopter fired two missiles at it.
Some Palestinian officials and witnesses said that after firing the first missile, the Israeli pilots waited for a crowd of rescuers to gather in the street before firing the second -- a charge denied by Israeli military officials.
The day after the attack, which drew wide international condemnation, Israeli military officials organized separate briefings for small groups of Israeli and foreign reporters to rebut the Palestinians' allegations regarding deaths and injuries. The officials showed a videotape of the attack shot by a remote-controlled drone. The tape, they said, showed no crowds in the street when the missiles struck.
In the foreign press briefing, officials said that the missiles used were only "a few" pounds and would not have caused collateral damage more than four or five yards from the point of impact. They said it was possible that the second missile might have hit explosives inside the car, magnifying the explosion's impact.
But in interviews conducted during the days following the attack, witnesses said many people were on the side of the street when the attack occurred but that trees and overhangs would have obscured them from an aerial view. Buildings as far as 30 yards from the car had deep shrapnel marks, and evidence suggested that the second missile fired missed the car and struck the pavement in front of it.
