Al Hamatzav

In Part I, I investigated HRW’s forensic claims, and questioned some of the photo evidence. I will now turn to the witness accounts and the methodology. Admittedly, this part and its questions may seem conspiratorial in nature, to varying degrees. The reader should judge for himself.

For starters, let us take a look at the unfortunate Mr. Ahmed Fawaz, who allegedly had his leg sliced off by a direct hit of the first missile in ambulance 777. Mind you, the missile went through his leg and exploded under the vehicle. After the missile hit, the two ambulance crews scrambled for safety in a nearby basement, and did not return for 1 hour and 40 minutes. “The crew members were unable to retrieve Ahmed Fawaz and his mother Jamila from the first ambulance hit, and believed them to have been killed.” And then, in the next paragraph: “The ambulance crew stayed in the basement of the building for one hour and 40 minutes.” The report then quotes Mr. Fawaz’ own account of the event. He recalls feeling for his leg and realizing it was not there, and then drifting in and out of consciousness. So, here we clearly have a person with a severed leg and blood gushing out, hemorrhaging fast. He received NO first aid treatment, and yet he was still alive one hour and 40 minutes later. Maybe a reader with more medical knowledge than me can explain this miracle. Mr. Fawaz testimony appears to be a major flaw, and in fact it threatens to discredit the entire report. Question #15: How did Mr. Fawaz survive for 1 hour 40 minutes with a severed leg without hemorrhaging to death?

Let us now turn to the issue of forensic evidence. The HRW team was lucky enough to retrieve two pieces of critical and previously unknown evidence. The first is the remains of the air vent that took a direct hit, and the second is the gurney mattress of Mr. Fawaz. For some reason, nobody bothered to display these artifacts during the initial controversy in July, and that may indeed be reasonable given the circumstances. It is rather odd, though, that an HRW team finds these left-overs two months later. If it had been only one piece, well maybe. But two pieces, neatly corroborating the particularly weak spots in HRW’s initial story? They appeared pronto, just as if somebody had kept them for a future investigation. Mind you, the research team spent a mere three days in the area, traveling between three locations and interviewing people. Surely, they did not sift through piles of debris. Question #16: Who was the curator of this treasure trove of war junk and forensic evidence? Question #17: What other material was available? Question #18: What makes HRW so certain the mattress and air vent are in fact genuine? As discussed in Part I, at least the mattress raises serious doubts due to the lack of blood stains.

More on the subject of the forensic evidence: ALL pictures shown in July depicted ambulance 782 with a nice round hole, clearly the fitting hole of the air vent. The issue caused considerable acrimony, and both HRW and Lebanese sources insisted repeatedly that this was in fact the missile penetration hole. Question #19: Why on Earth did somebody dissemble the air vent minutes after the “missile” strike, before the reporters and photographers were called in? And why did this person not come forward publicly during the first month of the controversy?

HRW claims the explosions occurred under the vehicles. Despite this, the missile that hit ambulance 777 caused a concussion wave that made the windshield of ambulance 782 cave in. Surely, the missiles must have left SOME KIND OF MARK on the under-carriage of the vehicles. It could be anything, such as pockmarks from shrapnel, dents from the pressure wave, burns from the heat blast or anything else. HRW did not need to produce impact craters in the tarmac to prove that missiles exploded under the vehicles. It would have been much easier, and much more convincing, just to take a few pictures from beneath each ambulance. Question #20: Are there any pictures of the damage sustained to the under-carriage of the ambulances; and if so, where are they? Question #21: If not, why did the HRW “forensic experts” fail to take any?

I now turn to the issue of methodology and tone of the entire report. One interesting military issue is the aerial platform allegedly used in the attack. HRW claims that drones fired the missiles. The reason is that “none of the witnesses reported hearing helicopters in the air before or during the attack, so it is most likely the missiles were fired from an Israeli drone.” The report uses the word drone with certitude, except in the one passage quoted above. Let us now look at the facts. Of course the witnesses heard no helicopters, because “/t/he ambulance personnel confirmed that they had left their lights and sirens on during the entire operation, as standard procedure.” The platform in itself is rather irrelevant. The real issue here is the unbearable ease with which the MRW experts reach conclusions, and then present these conclusions as facts. If the same rules apply to the other findings, then truly the report is completely worthless.

One of the major controversies from July was the issue of rust. Most pictures appearing in the press were taken one week after the incident, and they showed extensive corrosion in the pockmarks. The idea was that the damage to the ambulances predates the July 23 incident since the scratches on the roof are covered by rust. My blogger colleague zombietime.com published a lengthy analysis of different types of rust, their appearance, color, chemical properties, etc. HRW dismisses zombietime.com in this way: “Coastal Lebanon is not a ‘dry climate… in the summer,’ as alleged, but is extremely humid – as anyone present in Lebanon during the war can recount. The saline humidity of Lebanon’s coast causes rapid rusting, especially on damaged metals such as shrapnel-torn roofs.” That’s it, folks! Not one piece of physical evidence, not one comparative experiment, not one piece of analysis of the July pictures. Nothing else! I am no expert in metallurgy or chemistry, but Zombietime.com arguments are far more convincing than HRW’s “refutation.” Again, HRW tries to pass off some speculations as evidence.

In conclusion, I repeat that HRW’s version of the events is plausible, although it now seems improbable. The report, at best, is useless for those who seek the truth about the incident. At worst, the report completely discredits HRW. The issue at hand in July was HRW’s credibility as much as the true cause of the ambulance damage. It is a pity that HRW provided such an inconclusive report, which only serves to damage the organization’s own reputation.

http://www.zombietime.com/fraud/ambulance/

The original post has been edited slightly for style and clarity.