UNDERSTANDING
THE GOLDSTONE REPORT

 

The Mission ... found no evidence that members of Palestinian armed groups engaged in combat in civilian dress.

New York Times, "Warnings Not Enough for Gaza Families," 1/6/09:

Hamada Al-Samouni, 28, who was lightly wounded by the Israeli rocket and was clearly still in shock, said this was all happening ''because of the rockets'' fired by Hamas.

He said he had seen the bodies of eight Hamas fighters dressed in civilian clothing lying in the streets around Zeitoun.

New York Times, "A Gaza War Full of Traps And Trickery," 1/11/09:

Unwilling to take Israel's bait and come into the open, Hamas militants are fighting in civilian clothes; even the police have been ordered to take off their uniforms.

 

Times (London), "Gaza's tunnels, traps and martyrs: the Hamas strategy to defeat Israel," 1/12/09:

[Hamas figher Muhammed] said the fighters constantly changed their locations and tactics. They never attacked from the same place twice. They had secret means of communication, and spread disinformation to confuse the Israelis when speaking on their radios. They wore civilian clothes, concealed their weapons, and no longer walked around in groups.

Los Angeles Times, "Battered by Israel, Hamas faces tough choices," 1/12/09:

As the Israeli incursion rumbles into a 17th day, witnesses in Gaza and analysts portray the Islamic militant group as battered but defiant. Its walkie-talkie networks bleep and scratch through alleys, and its fighters, many in civilian clothes, move with the stealth of urban guerrillas, booby-trapping neighborhoods, communicating through e-mails, text messages and whispers in marketplaces.

Associated Press, "Hamas fighters seek to restore order in Gaza Strip," 1/20/09:

The high visibility of uniformed Hamas police [after the war] stood in contrast to the furtive movements of Hamas fighters in civilian clothing who confronted or tried to evade the Israeli onslaught that began Dec. 27.

The Mission found no evidence to suggest that Palestinian armed groups either directed civilians to areas where attacks were being launched or that they forced civilians to remain within the vicinity of the attacks.

A young witness from Jabaliya, Ibrahim Amen, 16, said a man had come to the mosque Tuesday and asked for volunteers to pile sand around the camp [near the Fakhura school] "to help protect the fighters." Ibrahim went to help with his brother, Iyad, 20, who was wounded by the Israeli mortar fire.

Ibrahim said that a commander of the military wing of Hamas, Abu Khaled Abu Asker, was in the area at the time and had been killed on the spot. ("Israeli mortars kill 40 Palestinian refugees," 1/6/09)

Witnesses, including Hanan Abu Khajib, 39, said that Hamas fired just outside the school compound, probably from the secluded courtyard of a house across the street, 25 yards from the school. Israeli return fire, some minutes later, also landed outside the school, along the southwest wall, killing two Hamas fighters. ("Weighing Crimes and Ethics in the Fog of Urban Warfare," 1/17/09)

An Israeli military statement said it received intelligence that the dead at the girls school included Hamas operatives, among them members of a rocket-launching squad. It identified two of them as Imad Abu Askar and Hassan Abu Askar. Two residents who spoke to an AP reporter by phone said the two brothers were known to be low-level Hamas militants. They said a group of militants -- one of them said four -- were firing mortar shells from near the school. (AP, "Gaza truce proposed after Israeli shell kills 30," 1/7/09)