Lebanon Red Cross ambulance attack story still being promoted

From Australia's "The Age", written by one Sarah Smiles:

While the interior of the ambulance has been gutted, a Red Cross volunteer who was in the same ambulance as Mr Fawaz said he did bleed onto his stretcher, but not excessively as his leg had been cauterised.

From Time Magazine, written by one Nicholas Blanford:

The father's leg was severed by the exploding missile and he was losing blood fast.

From The Age, again, now quoting Ahmed Fawaz, the man who lost his leg:

When he came to after the blast, he remembers reaching for his glasses that were knocked to the back of his head, adjusting them and then feeling a sense of malaise. "I put my hand on my leg and I couldn't feel it," he said. "I tried to take the cord of the IV drip to tie up my leg to stop it bleeding, but I couldn't manage it."

The Boston Globe, written by one Thanassis Cambanis:

An elderly woman patient was relatively unscathed, but Mohammed Mustafa Fawaz, 46, was in the intensive care unit, the stump where his right leg used to be swollen and bleeding.

The Age and Sarah Smiles:

However, Red Cross volunteers manning the ambulances and Mr Fawaz insist the hit was caused by small weapons fired from unmanned drones that they heard circling above after the attack.

The Boston Globe and Thanassis Cambanis:

Shaalan said he was swinging the back door shut when everything around him was engulfed in a flash of light.

"A big fire came toward me, like in a dream. I thought I was dying, at first," Shaalan said. "Then I opened my eyes, and I could see. I thought everyone in the ambulance was dead."

A rocket or missile had made a direct hit through the roof, Shaalan said, severing one patient's right leg. Shaalan took cover in a nearby building.(no mention of drones or of hearing drones prior to the attack)

So, who is lying, Smiles or Blanford, Fawaz or the unnamed Red Cross volunteer?

Andrew Bolt at The Herald Sun takes this apart in much more detail.

The missile through the Red Cross painted on the roof of one ambulance becomes a possible missile through the back of the other of the two that were attacked.

The first ambulance that was hit by a missile is now hit instead by "small weapons".

A man who had his leg blasted off in the ambulance with the hole through the Red Cross now has it blasted off in the ambulance with the bigger hole in the back.

A medic explains the strange absence of blood in that ambulance by saying the injured man's leg was "cauterised".

An attack launched by Apache helicopters is now launched by drones.

A driver who was first reported to have been knocked unconscious in the attack this time fails to mention that, claiming only that shrapnel-pocked helmet saved him.

Curiously, all three Red Cross workers who were there and were interviewed after the alleged incident, claim they were saved by a shrapnel-pocked helmet. None were actually wounded with all this shrapnel flying about.

No explicit acknowledgement is made of what seems even from this story to be conceded: that The Age's initial claim that a missile was fired through the Red Cross symbol of ambulance was false.

Nor does it admit what it also seems to concede: That the ambulance first pictured as "proof" of that missile strike was not hit by a missile at all.

Nor is any explanation is offered for the following:

Why we are only now shown a picture of the alleged ambulance that Smiles says was damaged worst - and presumably this time by a missile? Why did the media ignore this more dramatic picture that would have better proved their claims of an Israeli atrocity?

Why is an ambulance hit by a missile still largely intact? Don't Israeli missiles work?

Why did a missile attack on ambulances not only fail to destroy them, but fail to kill any of the people inside?

Why did The Age initially report both ambulances were in fact hit by missiles, when it now seems to concede that - at best (or really worst) just one was?

Why has an attack that one medic first said occurred as he was driving now changed to an attack as he was transferring patients?

Why was an ambulance hit by something that caused a huge "explosion" and "fire" show no scorch marks at all, and have a window caved inwards, not outwards?

Why did an ambulance allegedly attacked by Israel have the torn metal covered in rust in an initial Age picture take just one or two days later?

Why did a medic shown in hospital covered in bandages appear in pictures just days later with not a scar or scratch on his skin?

All strange questions needing answers which Smiles fails to provide. Nor does Smiles report that her main informant is an ambulance driver whose nickname, says the Boston Globe, is "Abou Harb" or "Father of War".

But bottom line from The Age report: The famous hole through the Red Cross sign on the ambulance roof was NOT caused by a missile. The picture of the ambulance it gave as proof told an untruth.

There is a lot more from Mr. Bolt, and precious little from The Age, Time Magazine or The Boston Globe.

Here is the original zombietime debunking of the whole "ambulance attack" story that brought frowns to Smiles.

Tim Blair has evidence of the perfidy of "The Age".

John Hinderaker at Power Line is not at all convinced.

Dan Rhiel says, "Please don't let me be misunderstood."

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TAGS: Lebanon, Red Cross ambulance