Huda Ghulia and Gilad Shalit

Who is Huda? She is the girl on the beach. Have you forgotten? Who is Gilad? He's the young IDF soldier the Gazans abducted. Weren't there two others, abducted later? Yes, but nobody talks about them-- I don't know why.

Aluf Benn of Ha'aretz has a piece in Salon, " The Showdown"

Benn begins his piece

This summer started out as the best one that Israel has had since the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada six years ago. Tourists filled Tel Aviv beaches, the stock market hit its all-time high, and the government, flush with unexpected budgetary fat, lowered taxes and discussed cutting defense and beefing up welfare programs that had been cut in previous years.

Alas, by mid-July Israel found itself engaged in a two-front war in Gaza and Lebanon -- two areas that it had left unilaterally in recent years. Enemy rockets hit deep in Israeli territory, killing several civilians and scaring thousands of others. Israel's Defense Force (the IDF) returned in full gear to the ruins of the former Gaza settlements, evacuated last year, and to the skyline of Beirut. Unlike previous rounds of violence, however, this time the world has mostly supported Israel's military response[1*], hoping it would deliver a painful blow to the regional troublemakers, the Palestinian Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah.

The road to war began in early June, when the tacit cease-fire between Hamas and Israel began to crack. Smaller Palestinian groups kept firing their Qassam missiles at the Israeli border town of Sderot. The IDF responded with targeted killings of suspected perpetrators, unfortunately killing innocent bystanders as well. Ehud Olmert, Israel's prime minister, put the brakes on military plans to escalate the fighting, and so did the Hamas leaders. But on June 25, a small Hamas unit attacked a military outpost on the Israeli side of the border, abducting a soldier and killing several others. Olmert decided against exchanging prisoners and hit back at Hamas, aiming to crush its military wing, halt the Qassams and weaken the civilian Hamas-led Palestinian government, which, despite enormous external pressure, has refused to recognize Israel and forswear terror.

Actually, they abducted one soldier and killed two, but "several others" makes it sound like...well, whatever you think several is. To his credit, Benn does note that as of Tuesday the IDF has reportedly killed 235 people in Lebanon[2*](over 90 percent civilians), versus 25 Israeli dead. I think his introductory words, after a mystifying quote from Moshe Dayan, are interesting:

This summer started out as the best one that Israel has had since the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada six years ago. Tourists filled Tel Aviv beaches, the stock market hit its all-time high, and the government, flush with unexpected budgetary fat, lowered taxes and discussed cutting defense and beefing up welfare programs that had been cut in previous years.

Ah, the beach. He never mentions little Huda Ghalia and her family, but he does mention the beach, and the start of summer. What would Freud say? On June 9th a shell exploded on the beach. The Gazans said that this was due to Israeli shelling. A Gazan family was killed, leaving only a small girl, Huda Ghalia alive.(I've also seen the transliterations Hoda and Ghaliya.)

According to Al-Jazeera, she was reported to have said she didn't know what she did to make God take her family away from her, and wished she could be with them. (At first she thought her father was asleep, but then she saw the blood coming out of his head.)


The IDF investigated(!) and about a week later said this was not possible, it could not have been an Israeli shell. Amnesty International and other groups called on Olmert to investigate, and he refused. Hostilities started shortly after that, something the US press has been remiss in mentioning. Try doing an in-site search for Huda Ghalia on CNN, MSNBC or FoxNews websites, and you will see a great dearth of info. I found 2 entries for CNN(one in Arabic), 3 for the Christian Science Monitor, and nothing for CBS News, MSNBC or Fox News, versus 16 items for the BBC. Wikipedia has an article about the incident, here.


In the prisoner swap from a couple of years ago that Benn does mention, Israel held on to three prisoners. It is noteable that the two kidnapppings resulted in three soldiers being abducted. And now undoubtedly there are other Huda Ghalias too, because Olmert didn't want to negotiate.

The Guardian: "Who really killed Huda Ghalia's family?"


Al-jazeera:"What have I done wrong to live without my parents?"


[1*]As far as Benn's assertion that the world supports what Israel has done, I question that, but I will address it later.
[2*] Speaking of the strangely skewed US coverage of the recent events, I note that if you go to CNN's homepage and select the International version you'll also see a running tally of the casualty count from Israel and Lebanon, but if you select the US version you won't. How about that.