When a precision-guided missile hits someone who isn’t a legitimate military target, who’s to blame? This question is now back in the public consciousness as the result of a strike two weeks ago that killed Shahed Talla. The ten-year-old girl, along with her friends, was playing foosball near a cake-shop in the Al-Maghazi refugee camp in Gaza when a missile struck.
Video taken during the blast’s aftermath showed Shahed’s body sprawled on the ground next to her friends.
The Israeli Defense Force has issued several statements on the incident since it happened, and while the tenor and thrust of their messaging has shifted over time, none of them have either directly or indirectly accepted responsibility for the strike which killed eleven children in the refugee camp. Nonetheless, expert analysis of photos and videos of the blast site has concluded that the weapon that detonated was most likely of Israeli origin.
One of the experts, a former officer in the British Army named Chris Cobb-Smith, has had experience in examining munitions used by both Hamas and Israel said that, judging by the imagery that was made available to him, he is convinced that the strike was conducted with precision weaponry fired by an Israeli drone. He characterized it as a “light missile fired by UAV.”
Among the images made available to CNN and shown to experts was a circuit board that has characteristics consistent with the guidance systems in such weapons. Chris Lincoln-Jones, a retired British military who is touted as an expert in drone warfare, singled out the circuit board as key to his identification. He pointed out that artillery shells have few-if-any electronic components—such parts are characteristic of weapons that are computer-controlled for the full length of their flight. He further added that the mere fact that it seemed to be a guided munition ruled out a misfire or false flag by Hamas, as he believes Palestinian militants do not have access weapons of such sophistication.
