Israel attacks humanitarian aid convoy in international waters

You can just barely see the markers (their hoppers, specifically) in one of the videos jetsetter posted. But I wouldn't be surprised if some people thought they were guns. A paintball marker can look/sound rather like a silenced gun. I seriously doubt sleeping people were shot, as well.
I don't think it's implausible that they were shot with paintballs, though. I don't know, but I don't find it implausible. Would explain why parts of the video hasn't been released.

I'll give as much weight to what the IDF claims as I would give to what the activists said. And former US Ambassador Edward Peck has said the alleged paintball guns were attached to automatic weapons, and others on the ships have also made similar claims. There were several ships, so maybe some soldiers just had paintball guns and others carried other weapons. I don't think it really matters what they were packing...it's the dead of night and soldiers are dropping onto your ship.....who is really paying attention to what kind of guns they have?

If there was only some way to prove it like, I dunno, a video?
In this case, the IDF is admitting to the shootings, and explaining how people were hit by live rounds. I'll believe that, as there's no reason to lie about that. The video footage so far does indicate that there's paintball weapons in use (unless the IDF glued bottles on the top of their SMG's, of course), and as people rarely get killed by paintball weapons, and if they do, it's freak incidents, and 9 freak incidents doesn't sound likely, I believe their claim the soldiers were armed with sidearms with live rounds.

I do however believe the paintball guns could, and probably were, mistaken by the people on the boat as SMG's with live rounds.
 
This is from the IDF's Youtube channel so take it with whatever amount of salt you wish.


The profusion of grinders is interesting.

In this case, the IDF is admitting to the shootings, and explaining how people were hit by live rounds. I'll believe that, as there's no reason to lie about that. The video footage so far does indicate that there's paintball weapons in use (unless the IDF glued bottles on the top of their SMG's, of course), and as people rarely get killed by paintball weapons, and if they do, it's freak incidents, and 9 freak incidents doesn't sound likely, I believe their claim the soldiers were armed with sidearms with live rounds.

I do however believe the paintball guns could, and probably were, mistaken by the people on the boat as SMG's with live rounds.

It seems clear enough. They began with the paintball markers, messed up the insertion, got tackled and beaten with metal rods and knifes and lost a few pistols, and then used their sidearms as a last resort. This did not happen on the other ships because it never escalated. Soldiers were not beaten and the insertions were fairly normal.
 
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I don't know if people have seen this, so I'll just post it:

u9Kul.jpg
 
A few others.

 
And what's your comment to the my previous post, jetsetter? And again, what is your interpretation as to why the IDF has not released the full video?
 
I don't know if people have seen this, so I'll just post it:

The first video I posted does show the vests so take that however you want.

And what's your comment to the my previous post, jetsetter? And again, what is your interpretation as to why the IDF has not released the full video?

Damage control perhaps. It is their prerogative. People who do not understand military matters usually come to false conclusions. That is one of the reasons why the military of the United States rarely releases full videos.
 
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I don't know if people have seen this, so I'll just post it:
I've read this elsewhere, too. So the IDF is too dumb to fabricate their false evidence properly? Good.

But: Does the IDF really use Flickr to host their photos? For god's sake, don't they have their own websites? If that are indeed the official IDF photos and not rehosted and edited versions, then the words EPIC FAIL are appropiate.
 
I've read this elsewhere, too. So the IDF is too dumb to fabricate their false evidence properly? Good.

But: Does the IDF really use Flickr to host their photos? For god's sake, don't they have their own websites? If that are indeed the official IDF photos and not rehosted and edited versions, then the words EPIC FAIL are appropiate.

The U.S. military uses their own sites, Flickr, Youtube, etc.
 
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The first video I posted does show the vests so take that however you want.
Adressing this later in my post.

Damage control perhaps. It is their prerogative. People who do not understand military matters usually come to false conclusions. That is one of the reasons why the military of the United States rarely releases full videos.
It doesn't do damage control. If anything, it makes it look like Israel is hiding something, and so far, I am not convinced they are not.

yes, the EXIF date is 7th of february 2006 but the D2Xs wasn't even announced by Nikon until July 2006 (June 2006 in France)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikon_D2X#Nikon_D2Xs
My bad, I mistook "D2Xs" for "D2X", the D2X was released in 2004.

Well, it's still stupid to make the images inadmissable as evidence. At least in most courts, not setting the correct date on a recording device will severly limit the usefulness of the recording. An amateur wouldn't make that mistake. I do agree, though, that is does seem like an honest mistake.
 
Geneva Convention said:
Article 33. No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.

And all the while, the peaceful Palestinians who are forced to live in a police state suffer. Hamas is revolting but frankly, I believe it is Palestine's right to rebel against blatant oppression. Hell we did the same thing about a couple centuries ago, and I'd say we suffered quite a bit less than the Palestinians do now.
 
Well, it's still stupid to make the images inadmissable as evidence. At least in most courts, not setting the correct date on a recording device will severly limit the usefulness of the recording. An amateur wouldn't make that mistake. I do agree, though, that is does seem like an honest mistake.
Erm what? Honest mistake? According to this site the EXIF data of the photos varies by several years. That suggests either different cameras all with different wrong date settings (not impossible, but highly unlikely), or someone manipulated the EXIF data (I don't know where the pictures in question first appeared; assuming they came from an official IDF source with this EXIF data, proceed to option 3), or the IDF used old photos from various occasion for this scheme.
 
Still, it's impossible for a camera released on June 1st 2006 to take a photo in February 2006. And I doubt Nikon use the IDF as BETA testers.

Other than that, that's an interesting link.
 
My own camera likes to fall back on factory settings when I remove the batteries for too long. And the date that is set then is to when before the camera came out. And that is my theory for "honest mistake" - but I highly doubt that they used several cameras and made the same mistake with all of them.
 
And if Israel combats terrorism, why did they finance Hamas covertly in the 80s? There's a lot of these questions on both sides.

They don't get rid of Hamas because Hamas is too powerful, not to mention that Hamas probably treats the majority pretty well, given the circumstances. I'm not defending Hamas, obviously, just debating causes.

In the case of financing Hamas during the 80s, it was to fuck the PLO. That did get back to bite them in the arse.
 
Hamas was freely elected. Of course, what does when get for holding free elections? Blockaded.
 
Which is a pity as there was a a very real chance of reconciliation with the Hamas of 2005. The chance is still there. But it's smaller.
 
Thanks to the boycot, the moderates were pushed aside, and the militants strenghtened their position.

Too bad. They're there to stay now.
 
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