Michael Baney

Disappointed the BBC cancelled my interview on Israel's killing of Hind Rajab 2 producers eagerly reached out. They confirmed the time & one called to prepare a brief for the anchor She asked me whether Israel's announcement is positive, I explained in detail it was a cover up. The IDF is blaming the killing of Hind, her uncle, aunt & 4 cousins on the family itself for trying to flee by car & on the ambulance sent to rescue her for "failures in the co-ordination of the movement." None of this is remotely true! The Red Cross immediately informed the IDF about 5-year-old Hind who was hiding in that motionless car, & they requested permission from Israel to allow an ambulance to rescue them. After multiple long hours, Israel granted greenlight to the ambulance & provided them with a designated route on a GPS to drive on. As soon as the ambulance reached Hind's car, the IDF ambushed & bombed them immediately with an American made anti-tank missile then opened fire on Hind's car. The car was hit with 355 bullets. Israel then kept that area under lockdown for 12 days, & prevented anyone from approaching. Hind's mom went daily to the Ahli baptist hospital hoping to find her daughter, until her lifeless body was brought in along with the charred remains of the ambulance men. Israel then claimed after an "initial investigation" that its troops were NEVER in that area to begin with. They maintained that claim for 2 years despite ample recordings & satellite images debunking this lie. The only reason Israel is now making this new announcement of a deeper investigation is to shield its soldiers & generals from the International Criminal Court by invoking the principle of "complementarity;" that the ICC cannot investigate a state that is already investigating itself in good faith. I told the BBC producer Israel today also quietly shut down the investigation into the triple tap killing of American, Canadian, British, Australian & Polish citizens in the WCK massacre. Israel blamed the massacre on the aid workers themselves for "deviating from the predesignated route" & for hiring an armed security guard "without informing the IDF" (both claims where debunked by WCK themselves, who had coordinates their every step with the IDF). I told the producer the Israeli commander responsible for this massacre, Nochi Mendel, is a fanatical settler who had signed a petition calling for starving Gaza & that he was celebrated by settler leaders & supported by Israeli government leaders after what he did. Mendel even received a box of chocolate from the settler council's leader & a letter of support for what he did. Mendel was initially dismissed by the IDF & blamed for the massacre, but was quickly & quietly reinstated & promoted in the Defence Ministry as the head of the settlements and national infrastructure unit. It's abundantly clear Israel is NOT serious about prosecuting any of the atrocities committed in Gaza. Since the genocide began, only two soldiers were punished by the IDF; one for microwaving a living frog & another for cooking sausages in the army kitchen on Shabbat. The producer asked me: What about the 150 cases the IDF said are pending review? I answered: it's just a number designed to give the appearance of seriousness, but it's essentially meaningless. If it took the IDF two whole years to admit the simplest of facts that the entire world had already known, which is that their troops were the ones who fired on Hind Rajab's car, how do you expect them to do with the remaining cases that are not as high profile? Five minutes after the call, the producer wrote me that they decided to cancel the interview & will not even host anyone else to comment on the issue, & instead they'll play archival footage!