SOTT FOCUS: It's not the first time the Israeli military has massacred children on a Gaza beach

A Palestinian boy whose father was killed weeps at his funeral in Gaza City, 13 July

    

Israel's latest game of "kill the Palestinians" began as a result of the kidnapping of 3 Israeli teenagers. No one knows who did it. Hamas denied they had anything to do with it, Israel has no evidence that Hamas had anything to do with it, and yet Israel blamed Hamas and, on the basis of that spurious claim, began bombing Gaza's civilians.

The latest example of unfettered Israeli criminality and brutality came today when Israeli missiles targeted part of the beach in Gaza, specifically, a part of the beach where four young Palestinian boys were playing football. This comes on the heels of last week's massacre of 9 young Palestinians in a beach cafe as they watched the World Cup.

The first projectile hit the sea wall of Gaza City's little harbour a little after four o'clock. As the smoke from the explosion thinned, four figures could be seen running, ragged silhouettes, legs pumping furiously along the wall. Even from a distance of 200 metres, it was obvious that three of them were children.

Jumping off the harbour wall, they turned on to the beach, attempting to cross the short distance to the safety of the Al-Deira hotel, base for many of the journalists covering the Gaza conflict.

    

They waved and shouted at the watching journalists as they passed a little collection of brightly coloured beach tents, used by bathers in peacetime.

It was there that the second shell hit the beach, those firing apparently adjusting their fire to target the fleeing survivors. As it exploded, journalists standing by the terrace wall shouted: "They are only children."

    

Four boys aged between seven and 11 were killed, three others were injured.

One of the 'lucky' ones

    

Not so 'lucky'.

    

One of the injured boys, Hamad Bakr, suffered a shrapnel wound to his chest. As he waited for surgery at the Shifa hospital today, his mother said: "They killed my nephew. Who does that? Who fires on children?"

That's a good question that goes to the heart of the matter. Who fires on children? Most people know the answer, although most also seem unable to apply it to Israeli politicians and the many Israeli Jews who cheer on the butchery.

In case you haven't noticed, Israel has developed something of a habit of periodically bombing Palestinians civilians in Gaza. It's as if every few years the psychopaths in Israel get a hankering for some major Palestinian blood-letting and they manufacture some barely plausible excuse to conceal their monstrous appetite from the world. They're also careful to give these blood-fests a euphemistic name to throw the mainstream media off the scent (not that the mainstream media needs much encouragement).

Back in 2006, it was under 'Operation Summer Rains' that Israelis got to enjoy the sight of Palestinians and their homes being blown to pieces. On a particular day that Summer, June 9th to be exact, a Palestinian family was trying to get some respite from the carnage by way of a picnic on Gaza's beach. But their relative peace and calm was suddenly shattered by an Israeli missile that literally blew the entire family (five members) to pieces, along with two others.

In the immediate aftermath of the 2006 attack, the Israeli government attempted to blame Hamas (and the victims), saying that the family had been killed by a mine placed on the beach by Hamas in the hope of killing Israeli soldiers. As I stated at the time, this claim was disingenuous at best given that the IDF had pulled out of Gaza a year before and there was therefore no reason for Hamas to think that a mine of the Gaza beach would kill anyone but Gazans. Confirmation that it was an Israeli missile eventually came from Marc Garlasco, a former Pentagon battle damage expert who surveyed the scene and concluded that "all the evidence points to a 155mm Israeli land-based artillery shell as its cause."

Mr Garlasco produced a four to five-inch, mainly blackened shell fragment which he collected about 100 yards from the scene of the explosion and in which the figures "55" and the letters "mm" are clearly discernible. Garlasco said other fragments and shrapnel which the Palestinian police explosives department took from the scene were definitely from a 155mm shell. Still, Israel denied any responsibility and blamed the victims.

In the eight years since that atrocity, Israel has continued its periodic slaughter of Palestinian children and continues to add massive insult to egregious injury by denying all responsibility. When orthodox Jewish settlers kidnapped 16 year old Mohamed Abu Khdeir, forced him to drink gasoline and then set him on fire, Israeli police deliberately spread the rumor that the boy had been killed by his own family for being gay.

If you're wondering what could possibly have possessed those settlers to subject another human being to such horrific treatment, you need look no further than the representatives of the state of Israel. The day before Mohamed Abu Khdeir was burned alive, member of the Israeli parliament and government whip Ayelet Shaked issued a call over Facebook to ethnically cleanse Palestine, declaring that "the entire Palestinian people is the enemy." Shaked advocated the complete destruction of Palestinians, "including the elderly" adding that the women must also be slaughtered, otherwise they would give birth to more "little snakes."

So don't be surprised by today's targeted killing of Palestinian children by the Israeli military on the orders of the psychopaths in the Israeli government. They've done it before, they'll do it again, they'll lie about it and blame the victims, and most of the world will continue to turn their collective face away as they succumb to the manipulations and distortions of the pusillanimous mainstream media.

Joe Quinn

Born, bred and fled from the last outpost of the British empire, Joe is a researcher, editor and writer for Sott.net