Yashanet comment: If it were not for the sadness of the stories below, the way that WAFA (the Official Palestine News Agency) is caught lying in its own reporting would be laughable. In the first report, WAFA clearly blames Israel for killing three children when they shelled a Palestinian residential area. In the next report, the very same three children are said to have died as suicide bombers. (Naturally the UN will accept story #1.) The "condemnation" of child suicide bombers in such reports is nothing more than propaganda for the media (and the UN) to "feast on" as Palestinian classrooms are filled with posters praising such acts, children are taught songs and in books how "honorable" killing Jews in such a manner is, Palestinian television continually shows clips praising such acts, and town squares in Palestinian territories are named "in honor" of such child suicide bombers.

4-25-02 - WAFA exposes its own propaganda, first presents death of 3 kids as Israeli "aggression", then condemns sending them on suicide mission

From IMRA

Report #1 WAFA presents death of three children as just another example of Israeli "aggression":

"The Israeli aggression escalates rapidly in the Gaza Strip" http://www.wafa.pna.net/EngText/25-04-2002/page003.htm Ramallah April 25th 2002 Wafa, An official Palestinian spokesman stated the following: As the Israeli aggression escalates and the tension increases, the brutal occupation forces increase their attacks, abuse, and terror against the Palestinian citizens in all the Palestinian populated places, barbarically targeting the infrastructure, the establishments and the private and public facilities including Churches, Mosques, Schools, hospitals, and ministerial offices, while their siege around the Presidential HQ is getting harder and tighter. Gaza: In the shadow of the escalating Israeli aggression three children: Ismael Abu Nadi (12), Wael Hamdona (11) and Yousef Zaqout (13) were killed when the Israeli shelled the residential areas of the Bedwin Village, Sudania and the Educational Collage, using tanks and artillery fire, causing severe damages.

Report #2 WAFA editorial "condemns sending such children to suicidal operations"

The required awareness http://www.wafa.pna.net/EngText/25-04-2002/page001.htm Gaza April 25th 2002, By Wafa (Official Palestine News Agency) political Editor; ... We are focusing now on the three boys killed, last night in Sheikh Ejleen, by the Israeli forces that used tanks, artillery and light bombs as is if it was a battle between equal armies. Due to narrow minded mistakable thinking we haven't opposed the participation of children in the struggle against the occupier, an act that was taken as a single conduct, but when these acts grew to become a phenomenon, it is time when we should strongly object, we have to be courageous enough to admit that sending boys to be slaughtered meters away from "Nitsarem" settlement is an unforgivable mistake and even a crime, it is a crime against our children, our future and our ethical cods, and we must question those behind it and try them. The terms, of right and wrong, and a matter of opinion are not applicable in the case of children, because children are minors that lack proper judgment and we do not own their God gifted life. The whole Palestinian society condemns sending such children to suicidal operations, this is a healthy and natural logic, these children are our treasures for the future they will be the men who will lift high the Palestinian society, and we did not raise them to become almost men and women in order to be sent to their early death."

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