An investigation by CNN into Israel’s strike on the Nasser Hospital this week – an attack that killed more than 20 people, including emergency workers and five journalists – is a case study in how even well-intentioned journalism, ostensibly examining Israeli crimes, ends up concealing more than it reveals.
CNN’s detailed examination of footage of Monday’s strike on the hospital in Khan Younis found that Israel’s so-called “double-tap” actually involved three missiles.
The first strike hit a fourth-floor stairwell close to a hospital upper balcony. Then, 10 minutes later, as emergency crews and journalists scrambled to help the victims, a second and third strike hit precisely the same spot.
A munitions expert who examined the footage notes that the second and third missiles were almost certainly fired from two different tanks in very close succession.
As he and CNN conclude, that removes any last trace of doubt on whether the attack on the hospital was, as Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu claims, “a tragic mishap”. Rather, it was a highly coordinated precision strike.
CNN reiterates a further and important contextual point that should obliterate Israel’s subsequent justification for its attack, following what Israel terms an “initial investigation”.
Let us note in passing that the Israeli military is pretending to investigate itself only to dampen the rare furore that has erupted over the strike, chiefly because the new atrocity was caught on camera and killed journalists working for major western news organisations. Israel has abandoned almost all of its previous investigations as soon as the western media could be provided with a fresher atrocity to report on. And Israel seems to have an endless production line of atrocities with which to distract them.
All too predictably, Israel’s “initial investigation” found a “Hamas” excuse.
According to the Israeli military, it hit Nasser Hospital’s stairwell because it had identified a camera there supposedly being used by Hamas.
Hellbound and Down 