Meron Rappoport, a former editor at the Israeli daily Haaretz and military analyst, criticized the air force's methods for selecting targets: "The impression is that information is sometimes lacking."
"One squadron leader admitted the evidence used to determine attacks on cars is sometimes circumstantial -- meaning that if people are in an area after Israeli forces warned them to leave, the assumption is that those left behind must be linked to Hezbollah ... This is problematic, as aid agencies have said many people did not leave ... because they could not, or it was unsafe to travel on the roads thanks to Israel's aerial bombardment," Rappoport said.
These revelations raise further serious questions about the airstrike in Qana on July 30 that left dozens dead, which continues to arouse international outrage.
From the outset, the Israeli military's version of events has been shrouded in ambiguity, with the army releasing a video it claims shows Katyusha rockets being fired from Qana, even though the video was dated two days earlier, and claiming that more than 150 rockets had been fired from the location.
Some Israeli military officials have continued to refer vaguely to Katyushas being launched "near houses" in the village and to non-specific "terrorist activity" inside the targeted building.
In a statement on Thursday, the IDF said that the air force did not know there were civilians in what they believed was an empty building, yet paradoxically blamed Hezbollah for using those killed as "human shields."
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