Three Updates from the Incursion into Gaza

One:

The IDF was not responsible for the death of a Palestinian aid worker contracted to the UN and the wounding of two others last Thursday, the IDF Spokesperson said Saturday.

“An IDF investigation has found that it was not the army who fired on a UN truck at the Erez Crossing,” the Spokesperson’s office said. The IDF is not sure who fired on the truck, and is still investigating. “The army further wishes to point out that the Palestinian wounded were evacuated by the Red Cross to the Israeli border, where they were taken by Israeli medical personnel for treatment at Ashkelon’s Barzilai Hospital,” the IDF told The Jerusalem Post.

On Thursday, the Post reported that contrary to foreign press reports, it was not certain that an IDF tank shell hit the aid truck, and that in all probability, the aid workers were hit by Hamas gunfire.

The foreign press reports were based on UN sources, who later admitted to the Post that they were not sure in which direction the truck was headed when it was hit, and could also not say with certainty that tank shells were responsible. Foreign press reports said the dead Palestinian and two others were hit by tank shells.

An MDA medic at the scene told the Post that soldiers in the field said Hamas snipers targeted the aid workers. A Post probe revealed that the two wounded Palestinians were being treated at Barzilai for gunshot wounds.

Two:

The incoming Obama administration will not abandon US President George W. Bush’s doctrine of isolating Hamas, the chief national security spokesperson of the Obama transition team has told The Jerusalem Post.

US President-elect Barack Obama “has repeatedly stated that he believes that Hamas is a terrorist organization dedicated to Israel’s destruction, and that we should not deal with them until they recognize Israel, renounce violence, and abide by past agreements,” said Brooke Anderson in a statement to the Post.

Those conditions match the international Quartet’s longstanding demands from Hamas, shared by Israel.

The Obama spokesperson was responding to an article in Britain’s Guardian daily on Friday, which asserted that three people with knowledge of discussions held in the Obama camp said that while the president-elect will not approve direct diplomatic negotiations with Hamas early on, his advisers are urging him to initiate low-level or clandestine approaches, in light of the growing recognition in Washington that ostracizing the terror group is counter-productive policy.

Three:

Scottish singer-songwriter and Eurythmics star Annie Lennox, who starred in an anti-Israeli rally in London on Saturday slamming Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip, posted a message on her facebook site Wednesday denying she was anti-Israeli.

Lennox’s comment, entitled “Annie’s Second Official Statement regarding the Situation in Gaza,” said, “I am not anti-Israeli nor have I ever been, and for anyone to say that I am is profoundly offensive and completely wrong.

“The reason why I spoke out when I did was because at that point in time there was a tiny window of opportunity to prevent a blood bath on both sides before the ground troops went in,” she wrote. “I have never condoned suicide bombings, or the firing of missiles into Israel. I repeat… The slaughter of innocent lives on both sides is abhorrent.”

I’m not sure why anybody cares what Annie Lennox says or thinks about Israel, but there it was, a little article among the others letting us all know. Now we know.