Beach Blanket

[Update below]

Israeli Defense Minister, Amir Peretz, is claiming that Israeli investigations of the beach bombing incident of last week demonstrate that the incident was not the result of an errant, or otherwise, Israeli artillery shell.

An Israeli inquiry concluded that the blast was caused by an explosive buried in the sand, not from Israeli shelling on the afternoon of the Palestinian family's beach picnic.

This is disputed by HRW military expert Marc Garlasco, who says that the shrapnel, blast pattern and victims' wounds indicate an Israeli shell "had come in" and that a land mine could not have been responsible. Obviously, anyone not there is hardly in a position to question either claim but you've got enjoy the juxtaposition of two pertinent statements:

The head of the Israeli inquiry, Major General Meir Klifi, declared: "There is no chance that a shell hit this area. Absolutely no chance."

and

Israel has been pounding northern Gaza with hundreds of artillery shells for weeks, trying unsuccessfully to stop Palestinian militants from setting up and launching homemade rockets at Israel.

Hundreds of shells launched into northern Gaza but yet there is "no chance" that a shell landed on the beach. Breathtaking confidence.

And while the Israeli Defense Ministry is denying responsibility for the beach incident, they certainly don't deny this:

An Israeli airstrike targeting a key figure in Palestinian rocket attacks killed 10 people Tuesday, including the militant, two children and three medical workers who rushed to the scene of an initial blast.

It is unclear why the Israelis would feel such a strong need to adamantly deny the putative beach shelling while, at the same time, they demonstrate no qulams about blowing up civilians in other parts of Gaza. I guess it falls under the same general mentality that would focus on investigating Haditha -- months after it took place -- while civilians in Iraq are blown up and shot on a daily basis. That is, investigations are needed, and denials created, because the event in question became a media frenzy. Similar but otherwise common and unnotable violence gets short shrift.

Update: via Cernig, comes more argument that the IDF investigation is likely bogus and an admission that, indeed, the Israeli military had been shelling the beach very nearby:

The Israeli military is now admitted that, indeed, they were launching shells onto the beach and that they cannot account for one of the rounds:The military now says that it fired six shells on to and around the beach where Huda Ghalia's family died, with one of them falling about 100 yards away...

The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported that the army concedes that five shells landed along a 250-metre stretch of beach and that a sixth shell is unaccounted for.

Further details about the expertise of the above mention HRW expert, Marc Garlasco, who disputes Israeli claims of a "land mine":

[Garlasco is] a former Pentagon expert on battlefields who led the US military's battle damage assessment team in Kosovo and worked for its intelligence wing, the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Sounds like a guy who would know what he is talking about. Garlasco claims direct evidence of Israeli shelling:

But after investigating the scene, Mr Garlasco concluded that the army's explanation is deeply flawed. Among the new shrapnel he collected at the scene of the deaths is a piece stamped with the figures: 155MM.

"The 155mm shell is what Israel uses in the howitzers that regularly shell northern Gaza," he said.

Mr Garlasco said the crater where the family was killed closely resembles others scattered the length of the beach caused by Israeli shells. Each is lined with a white power left by the explosion, including the one where the family died.

The IDF are relying on an "eight minute gap" between the firing of the unaccounted for shell and the reported time of the explosion on the beach. On that basis, the IDF claimed there was "no chance" that it was an errant shell from one of their howitzers. Smell that?