Newest Jenin video - what am I seeing?

[danholo]

Did you see the newest footage from Jenin on BBC?
It was of that incident when a tank opened fire on some people.
Two or three children and an older person were killed.

The video was pretty frightening and horrific, but it did raise many questions.

First we see kids running and behind them a car honking to warn them. Around them is a field and houses. After the kids and the vehicle have advanced a little forward, from the left corner from behind a house and intersection a tank shows up and shoots at the people. After the shots the picture gets all blurry. The incident was filmed from afar, probably 200 meters away more or less.
The video raised suspicion and we didn't even get the name of the filmer, but at first sight it doesn't look "justified" at all.

Also it probably could be that the tank crew came from behind and couldn't see from behind the houses and after the tank came into firing range it shot "warning shots" it shot immediately, two rounds, without a proper target. Also we don't know where if the soldiers saw the kids.

After the footage, we see the man telling how he misses his kids, but doesn't look that sad, but was most likely and then we see the wounded man from the car that was behind the children in the incident.
He said, he was turned back by soldiers because he was warned of the curfew that was present. Then the driver went off and suddenly the soldiers started shooting and one tank went after the car. This was the most suspicious part. Why did they go after the car? Was there a passanger in it?

I usually stand for Israel and I still do, but the video makes me pretty angry. I still wish for more investigation into the matter and even if it was a mistake, which I wish it is, the deaths of these poor (their house looked actually pretty nice, from what we see from Orla Guerin's report) innocent children going to buy a candy bar was entirely in vain.

[L@mplighterM]

Originally posted by danholo

First we see kids running and behind them a car honking to warn them.



I wouldn’t believe anything a Muslim told me.

So you have a video taken from an aerial view. What does that prove?

Nothing!

By the way were you there to hear the car honking?

[I am David]

The worst it was was a mistake, get over it, the US just bombed a wedding party for christs sake ok , people make mistakes in the army, it happens! Besides I'm willing to bet that it wasn't what it looked like. A lot more is going on than what some Palestinian video man can capture on his 10$ video camra.

[NewsGuy]

I just saw the video and quite frankly could not make out a single thing, other than some figures in the street and then the camera suddenly jerked up to the sky. Why the Arab cameraman decided to film the sky at the exact moment of the alleged incident, I don't know. The bottom line is that I could not see the alleged shooting, nor the sequence of events.

But the news narration was terrible. Even for the lousy BBC, this reporter was about as objective as Mullah Omar on a Friday afternoon Israel-bashing mosque session. She droned on convicting not only the soldiers in the incident, (which again, could not be seen in the video), but convicting the entire State of Israel and the IDF.

And as usual, the BBC.com site carried the "news" of the video, but the news of the 2 dead Israelis and the 6 wounded in yesterday's Arab terrorist attack at LAX was well hidden and certainly nowhere in sight.

So, while I'm not really sure what happened in the video, I would repeat that any IDF soldiers who intentionally defied his commander's shooting policy, should be punished severely.

But as a reality check, let's not forget that it is the fault of the Palestinian suicide bombers who used the Jenin rat hole as a base to launch mass murders against innocent Israelis. This is the reason the IDF needs to risk the lives of its soldiers to be there in the first place. If the groups like the Hamas and Islamic Jihad would not run terorrist training camps and bomb factories in residential neighborhoods like Jenin, then Israeli tanks would not be there in the first place.

If there is indeed blame to be had, then it is certainly needs to be split between the IDF soldier who acted contrary to explicit orders, and between the Palestinian terrorist groups and their supporters in the local population, who are equally at fault for the alleged incident.

Rather than reaching any conclusions, let's see how this turns out when the truth is finally exposed.

[Vic]

Just looked at at the video on the BBC site: maybe it's my "Real Player", but I couldn't make out a thing. And doesn't the IDF have a habit of apologizing first and investigating afterwards, cf. the Mohammed al-Dura case?

[ibrodsky]

Originally posted by NewsGuy
I just saw the video and quite frankly could not make out a single thing, other than some figures in the street and then the camera suddenly jerked up to the sky. Why the Arab cameraman decided to film the sky at the exact moment of the alleged incident, I don't know. The bottom line is that I could not see the alleged shooting, nor the sequence of events.


The BBC's claim that this video showed an IDF tank firing on children is a big fat lie. If they were interested in getting at the truth, they'd ask credible, independent experts to examine the original tape frame-by-frame. I saw it on TV and you can't really make out much of anything beyond some people running, a car, and a tank coming around a corner and firing. There's no way you could tell if the tank was being fired on.

In the aftermath of the Jenin Massacre, in which more than a dozen Israeli soldiers were lured to their deaths, it's no surprise that the IDF acted immediately against curfew violaters.

It's revealing that Palestinians are repeatedly violating curfews. Based on past behavior, they see two "advantages" to doing so: 1) it draws fire on civilians, and 2) it tests Israel's determination to enforce curfews.

[danholo]

I saw the video on the BBC twice and a friend and I were first disgusted but then we started to examine the video and the stuff that we don't see.

We have no idea why the tank went to pursue the doctor in his car, because the soldiers said to the driver that it was allowed to be outside. Or that's what the doctor said to the BBC.
But a Merkava is extremely accurate and the other shell hit the wall near the kids. The kids died most likely of the impulse of the explosion. Also, the tank fires immediately when it comes into our view, which means that the crew couldn't have seen where it was firing and since it was pursuing the car, if it would've wanted to kill, the car would've been blown to pieces. You can't see a bunch of kids from behind houses also. That's for sure.
After the tank fires, the picture is lost, which is also suspicious.

[elke]

I saw the video on the BBC twice and a friend and I were first disgusted but then we started to examine the video and the stuff that we don't see.

Again, this is classic propaganda ploy: show a video out of context, and hope that most people would never question any further. Human beings tend to "believe it when they see it", even though it's continuously brought to our attention that what we see is not necessarily the reality.

[danholo]

Having seen so much Arab propaganda, this video has to be examined by experts. The children were killed, but I believe that the tank was after the automobile, whose driver was not that seriously wounded and the children could not be seen.

On a Finnish board, a pro-Palestinian said something like:
"This is further proof of Israeli aggression towards civilians. It was clearly intentional, as we can see in the video."

[elke]

Originally posted by danholo
On a Finnish board, a pro-Palestinian said something like:
"This is further proof of Israeli aggression towards civilians. It was clearly intentional, as we can see in the video."

This is also a classic ploy. See this thread: http://www.israelforum.com/board/showthread.php3?s=&threadid=1101

Can't find ANY independent references to the majority of these "massacres".

[Iori Yagami]

I saw that video on the local news last night... But I don`t understand what the whole fuss is about, you don`t see the tank hit anything, the camera "mysteriously" looks at the sky when the tank fires... "Jenin funeral" anyone?