An Entire Family Destroyed; Hamas Escapes Blame

"For Arab Clan, Days of Agony In a Cross-Fire"
A1, Saturday 1/10/09
By Taghreed El-Khodary and Isabel Kershner

A few major problems:

1) The UN’s Human Rights Council has a “reputation for censoring Israel”.

2) “Israel has said that Hamas militants were firing mortars from a location near the [UN] school.” What’s not offered is an additional sentence that Gazan witnesses later confirmed this.

The biggest concern with this piece is that there’s no exploration of the responsibility for the destruction of this Gazan family. Considering Hamas’ use of women and children to die as martyrs and their mixing of terrorist and civilian hasn’t been a topic of high import to the Times, it’s no surprise that possibility – or history – isn’t mentioned here.

Offering a packaged response from an Israeli official who says Palestinians "cynically use" human shields is grossly insufficient and intentionally so. On the record are plenty of instances of Hamas' strategy of sacrificing its fellow Gazans.