The UNRWA Clinic that Was … Then Wasn’t
In a horrific event three IDF soldiers were killed recently in a explosion of a booby trapped entrance to a HAMAS tunnel in in Gaza. Please send your thoughts and prayers to their families.
At the Times of Israel Mitch Ginsburg followed up with a story regarding the trap, stating that an IDF General identified the building as an “UNRWA Clinic”. Other stories ID’ed the building as a home, and here in the U.S. the usual suspect right wing sources ran with the UNWRA Clinic story, starting with Breitbart and Gateway Pundit. This is a natural for them since they hate anything UN from start to finish, and propagate conspiracy theories like “Agenda 21” about the UN with regularity.
Here’s the pertinent part of the story, with an update, from Mitch:
Three IDF soldiers were killed Wednesday morning in Gaza in an explosion at a booby-trapped UNRWA health clinic that housed a tunnel entry shaft, the IDF’s Gaza Division commander, Brig. Gen. Micky Edelstein, said in a briefing.
After describing certain precautionary measures, Edelstein said, “And then we enter with our people, and they [the militants], from the very same terror tunnel, they blow up half the clinic on our troops.”
“They blow [up] the UNRWA clinic on our troops.”
UNRWA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
However, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, the military unit that implements government policies in the Palestinian areas, later said that the clinic in Abu Daka, outside Khan Younis, was last registered as a sensitive location three years ago, “and it hasn’t been since.”
The spokesperson said the site had not been registered then as belonging to UNRWA, leading to speculation that, perhaps, militants stole the sign and tacked it on the door, posting it as a security umbrella under which a tunnel could be dug.
After his update, Mitch tweeted the update from COGAT:
Development in clinic story. Cogat says not UNRWA site. Last registered 3 yrs ago; could be hamas put up sign to build tunnel @RaphaelAhren
— Mitch Ginsburg (@MitchGins) July 30, 2014
Hey @Levitt_Matt, see updated story. Seems building was marked as UNRWA but was not registered as such; perhaps hamas ploy, fake sign
— Mitch Ginsburg (@MitchGins) July 30, 2014
Now it’s possible that an old sign was still on the building, even though UNRWA is not using it or registering it, or it’s possible that HAMAS moved or created an UNRWA sign, to me this is still fog of war so I’ve tweeted to Mitch to see if there is photo or video evidence of same, since as we know at LGF the IDF has become expert at documenting & exposing HAMAS ploys such as this (see IDF’s Youtube channel here.)
Meanwhile even more right wing sites in the US are propagating the story but not the updates, including The Blaze, Newsmax, and others so expect this to be on FOX and don’t expect the update that it wasn’t actually an UNRWA clinic in use anytime recently. Also note: it’s late night in Israel, so I am not expecting to hear anything today if they do reply to my tweet.