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Weapons used in attacks were more powerful than what the Israeli army declared
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OCCUPIED
JERUSALEM, November 20 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - An Arab
Israeli lawmaker Wednesday, November 19, accused the Israeli
occupation forces of using a "banned weapon" in a deadly
raids in the Gaza Strip in October 20, as another left wing Meretz
party deputy threatened to reveal confidential information on the
deadly raids.
The
Israeli army admitted in a statement lying about the kind of weapons
used in the Gaza attack.
Opposition
MP Ahmad Al-Tibi said the army had used a "secret banned
weapon" in the raid and accused it of employing military
censorship to stop the publication of details related to the issue,
Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
"This
concerns banned munitions whose explosion had an impact that extended
over several dozen meters (yards)," Al-Tibi said in a statement.
Twelve
Palestinians were killed
and 70 wounded in five Israeli air strikes on October 20, which
targeted Gaza Strip refugee camp of Nusseirat.
"Air
Force commander Dan Halutz lied in public when he said after the raid
that the Air Force used Hellfire missiles that were fired by Apache
helicopters. It was not Apaches that launched the banned weapon,"
he charged.
Citing
the appearance of strange infections among Palestinians, a Palestinian
security member said in April that Israel may
have used chemical weapons against the
Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, a Palestinian security
member said Tuesday.
Another
MP Attacks:
Meanwhile,
another member of parliament Yossi Sarid, of the left-wing Meretz
party, threatened to unveil "confidential information" over
the Nusseirat raid in October.
Sarid
made his threat after Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz refused to tell him
the type of weapons used in the raid, during a meeting of parliament's
defense and foreign affairs committee, according to the Haaretz
daily.
According
to Sarid, the army used "powerful munitions with an unusually
large range of impact".
On
the other hand, Yuval Steinitz, the Likud chairman of the Knesset
Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee filed a request to Knesset
Speaker Ruby Rivlin to remove Sarid from Steinitz's committee with a
charge that Sarid was threatening to “leak” classified
information, Haaretz daily said.
Also,
the Knesset asked Sarid not to unveil the information on weapons used
in the Israeli raid.
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The army used "powerful munitions with an unusually large range of impact," Sarid
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Although
the army officials denied a reported massacre in Nusseirat, enhancing
the claim with a video footage showing the area attacked was
uninhabited.
“So,
from where we got those Palestinians killed and injured whom we found
were rushed to hospital after the raid,” he wondered, saying that
many of the casualties were innocent civilians.
“A
ferocious weapon might have been used,” he believed.
Media
Was Mislead:
Meanwhile,
the Israeli media accused army officials of misleading them as to the
type of weapon used in the raid against ‘militants’ at the crowded
Nusseirat refugee camp in Gaza, Reuters said.
"Reports
said the weapon used was more powerful than the Hellfire missile the
army said it fired during the attack -- and that helped account for
dozens of civilian casualties -- but the military censor has barred
publication of the type of missile used," Reuters added.
Israeli
public radio said the army had admitted that arms other than Hellfire
missiles had been used in the Nusseirat attack, AFP said.
According
to public radio, the army is now admitting that it used munitions in
the raid other than the Hellfire missile.
Israeli
Army Admits Lying
In
a statement, an army spokesman said that it was "not possible for
operational and security reasons to provide all the details of what
went on at Nusseirat."
"The
version of the facts which we have given was exact.. but it could be,
because of the sensitive nature of the operation, that we were
mistaken in the manner in which we chose to describe the methods used
in this operation," the spokesman continued.
The
statement, however, did not name the type of missile used in Israeli
army raids in its incursions in the Palestinian occupied territories.
On
October 13, the Israeli Supreme Court turned down a petition by human
rights doctors group against the army’s use of
internationally-banned weapons against the Palestinians.
The
court claimed that it could not determine the kind of weapons the army
can or can not use in the attacks against the Palestinians.
Israeli
opposition group B’Tselem said in 2000 that actions of the Israeli
occupation forces in southern Lebanon constitute such a grave
violation of human rights that they amount to war crimes.
"Some
of the violations committed by Israel in Lebanon amount to war
crimes," B'Tselem had said.