The Gaza offices of a leading human rights organization were hit by an Islamic Jihad rocket on Wednesday. But who did they blame? Israel, of course.
No, this is not satire.
But it is very telling of the kind of automatic bias Israel faces in the international arena.
The organization in question is the Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR), a Palestinian outfit that monitors human rights abuses in the Palestinian Authority and Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
That alone might make some question whether this rocket strike was an accident, or a not-too-subtle message from the human rights abusers in Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
In either case, the ICHR did its patriotic duty by promptly accusing Israel of having targeted its offices, an assertion that was quickly picked up by other global human rights groups, like Amnesty International, without bothering to investigate the facts.
But, as Ha’aretz reported, it turns out that the rocket had indeed been fired from inside Gaza, almost certainly by Islamic Jihad militants.
It was a Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) rocket aimed at Israeli civilians that fell short, hitting the Palestinian human rights organisation’s building live on Reuters stream.
Conduct a proper investigation before blaming people who were not involved. https://t.co/YsrptI9Uix
— ELINT News (@ELINTNews) November 13, 2019
A video clip pulled from a Reuters livestream purporting to show the terrorist rocket falling short and hitting Gaza City has since been making the rounds online. Again, we aren’t so sure this was a misfire.
Video from the @Reuters livestream via @RelicHq showing the errant Palestinian rocket falling short and hitting the Palestinian Independent Commission For Human Rights building in Gaza. Not an Israeli airstrike. pic.twitter.com/P76Dx0RyIU
— ELINT News (@ELINTNews) November 13, 2019
Another piece of evidence that Palestinian terrorists were responsible for the incident is, as pointed out by The Times of Israel, that Palestinian media has declined to report on it.
As any observer will know, was there even the smallest sliver of evidence (and sometimes even that’s not necessary) that Israel was involved in bombing the offices of a human rights organization, the Palestinian media would be absolutely screaming it from the rooftops.
