A Human Rights Watch report claiming IDF soldiers killed 11 Palestinian civilians holding white flags in the Gaza Strip during Operation Cast Lead is "based on unreliable witness reports," the IDF said in a statement released Thursday.
| Of course it's unreliable -- it came from Human Rights Watch, which as the article notes at the end, has done this sort of thing before ... |
"Moreover," the statement continued, the international human rights organization "didn't bother to give the report to the IDF before releasing it to the public via the media, to allow for in-depth investigation."
The army stressed that soldiers were under orders to "honor the 'white flag' as a sign of surrender... and to avoid harming" anyone raising such a flag.
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