The Guardian continues to mislead on cause of Palestinian deaths at UN school

On July 25th we posted about the UK media’s rush to judgement after more than two dozen Palestinian civilians were reportedly killed the previous day at a UNWRA school in the Gaza city of Beit Hanoun. The Guardian was among those British publications which immediately blamed Israel hours after the incident, despite the dearth of evidence.
As we subsequently noted, an Israeli army inquiry into the fighting at the UN facility found that IDF mortars did NOT play a role in the killing of Palestinians in the school courtyard. The army admitted that one errant IDF-fired shell did hit the UN-run school’s yard on the day in question, but at a time when there were evidently no people in the yard – as the following video released by the IDF appears to demonstrate.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62AyrcSaA3M]
Additionally, IDF spokesman Peter Lerner told reporters that the IDF had returned fired at Hamas targets (which were stationed near the school) on the day in question, and that one of the errant tank mortars landed in the school courtyard, “injuring no one“. Lerner said it was “extremely unlikely” that anyone had been killed by the mortar round that fell in the empty yard.
Further, as CAMERA has previously noted, numerous news reporters, as well as United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, have acknowledged that the circumstances behind the July 24th incident were unclear.
However, not only did the Guardian fail to report this evidence at the time, but they continue to publish articles and photo stories about the summer war which falsely suggest that Israel’s guilt is firmly established.
A Feb. 26th photo story at the Guardian (The human cost of the Israel-Gaza Conflict in pictures) includes these two images.

one
 
two
In late July, after communication with CAMERA, Associated Press quite admirably updated an entire series of photographs which originally included misleading captions imputing Israeli guilt. Their new captions stressed that the circumstances behind the July 24th Beit Hanoun casualties were unclear.
We urge the Guardian to do the same, and revise the captions (to their Feb. 26 photo story) accordingly. 

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