When did Israel plan and execute a cold blooded attack on a 13 yr old girl?
I'm not defending what happened, your article stated "Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's office issued a statement charging the attack was aimed at undermining his government's effort to build international support for "the Palestinian position and ending the (Israeli) occupation."
There are people who don't want peace, like I stated, those people have been fighting for millenniums and our blood and treasure shouldn't be involved;imho. Other than that, they can blow each other off of the face of the world for all I care, it seems that those less fortunate; like pregnant women and children; are harmed by both sides while we fund and "aid" both sides..
The Palestinian prime minister has no control over what goes on in Gaza. Gaza is controlled by Hamas, which took full credit for the act.
The Islamic militant group Hamas claimed responsibility.
Still waiting to see where Israel ordered the killing of the 13 yr old girl.
I never stated that Israel ordered anything but they do have a history of terrorism when they were fighting for a home just like the Palestinians do such as the bombing of the King David hotel in 1945; I wonder if any pregnant women or young girls were killed then by Menachem Begin; the man who would later become an Israeli PM or the bombing of the USS Liberty, they have blood on their hands just like others in that region do and as long as we aren't involved;which we are; I really could care less.
They may not have ordered it but they seem to don't mind.
An Israeli army officer who fired the entire magazine of his automatic rifle into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl and then said he would have done the same even if she had been three years old was acquitted on all charges by a military court yesterday.
The soldier, who has only been identified as "Captain R", was charged with relatively minor offences for the killing of Iman al-Hams who was shot 17 times as she ventured near an Israeli army post near Rafah refugee camp in Gaza a year ago.
The manner of Iman's killing, and the revelation of a tape recording in which the captain is warned that she was just a child who was "scared to death", made the shooting one of the most controversial since the Palestinian intifada erupted five years ago even though hundreds of other children have also died.
After the verdict, Iman's father, Samir al-Hams, said the army never intended to hold the soldier accountable.
"They did not charge him with Iman's murder, only with small offences, and now they say he is innocent of those even though he shot my daughter so many times," he said. "This was the cold-blooded murder of a girl. The soldier murdered her once and the court has murdered her again. What is the message? They are telling their soldiers to kill Palestinian children."
The military court cleared the soldier of illegal use of his weapon, conduct unbecoming an officer and perverting the course of justice by asking soldiers under his command to alter their accounts of the incident.
Capt R's lawyers argued that the "confirmation of the kill" after a suspect is shot was a standard Israeli military practice to eliminate terrorist threats.
Following the verdict, Capt R burst into tears, turned to the public benches and said: "I told you I was innocent."
The army's official account said that Iman was shot for crossing into a security zone carrying her schoolbag which soldiers feared might contain a bomb. It is still not known why the girl ventured into the area but witnesses described her as at least 100 yards from the military post which was in any case well protected.
A recording of radio exchanges between Capt R and his troops obtained by Israeli television revealed that from the beginning soldiers identified Iman as a child.
In the recording, a soldier in a watchtower radioed a colleague in the army post's operations room and describes Iman as "a little girl" who was "scared to death". After soldiers first opened fire, she dropped her schoolbag which was then hit by several bullets establishing that it did not contain explosive. At that point she was no longer carrying the bag and, the tape revealed, was heading away from the army post when she was shot.
Although the military speculated that Iman might have been trying to "lure" the soldiers out of their base so they could be attacked by accomplices, Capt R made the decision to lead some of his troops into the open. Shortly afterwards he can be heard on the recording saying that he has shot the girl and, believing her dead, then "confirmed the kill".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/nov/16/israel2?CMP=twt_gu
