What Really Went On In Gaza

Did Britain take reporters into Iraq? No.

How about Afghanistan? No. Of course not.

No sane nation allows journalists into a war zone. Yet Israel has been condemned for not permitting foreign media into Gaza, during her attempts to destroy the Hamas terrorist bases there. Once again, the Jewish state is expected to do things that no other country ever is. The hypocrisy is astonishing.

For if reporters had been granted access, and any of them killed in the crossfire, we know just who would have been blamed, don't we? Yep, got it in one: Israel.

Now that the 'ceasefire' is in place, though, and journalists have arrived in Gaza, it's intriguing to note what they are actually saying. Newsweek talked to gunmen who admitted using a hospital as a base from which to fire at Israel:

"One of the most notorious incidents during the war was the Jan. 15 shelling of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society buildings in the downtown Tal-al Hawa part of Gaza City, followed by a shell hitting their Al Quds Hospital next door; the subsequent fire forced all 500 patients to be evacuated . . . In the Tal-al Hawa neighborhood nearby, however, Talal Safadi, an official in the leftist Palestinian People's Party, said that resistance fighters were firing from positions all around the hospital. "

Daily Telegraph correspondent Tim Butcher is also in Gaza:

"I knew Gaza well before the attacks, so when Israel ended its ban on foreign journalists reaching Gaza on the day the ceasefire was announced, I was able to see for myself. One thing was clear. Gaza City 2009 is not Stalingrad 1944. There had been no carpet bombing of large areas, no firebombing of complete suburbs. Targets had been selected and then hit, often several times, but almost always with precision munitions. Buildings nearby had been damaged and there had been some clear mistakes, like the firebombing of the UN aid headquarters. But, in most the cases, I saw the primary target had borne the brunt."


"But, for the most part, I was struck by how cosmetically unchanged Gaza appeared to be. It has been a tatty, poorly-maintained mess for decades and the presence of fresh bombsites on streets already lined with broken kerbstones and jerry-built buildings did not make any great difference."


Oh, and don't expect to see any of these reports either on the BBC or in the Guardian or Independent. After all, these Palestinian propaganda machines could hardly give Israel fair coverage now, could they...?