The Washington Post's Max Fischer updates his story and offers a sustantial explanation. Here's an excerpt:
[I]t turns out that, according to a new United Nations draft report from the office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the explosive that killed Omar Mishrawi may have actually been fired by the Gaza-based militant group Hamas, which has a reputation for missing. Though the initial report was less than clear on the matter (more on this below), the Associated Press now reports that a representative from the UN says the explosion “appeared to be attributable to a Palestinian rocket.” If true, this would be a significant shift in our understanding of Mishrawi’s death, which became a symbol of that month’s conflict.
I returned from vacation this morning with more than a few reader notes alerting me to the UN report and asking me to append my earlier post. I held off because the draft report was a bit sketchy, as draft reports can sometimes be. It does not name Mishrawi or his family, stating only, “On 14 November, a woman, her 11-month-old infant, and an 18-year-old adult in Al-Zaitoun were killed by what appeared to be a Palestinian rocket that fell short of Israel.” That’s the right time and location, but the wrong family relationship: Omar’s aunt, not his mother, was killed in the strike. While it was reasonable to wonder if this might still refer to the strike that killed Mishrawi, this single sentence was far from conclusive. The citation, which reads only “Case monitored by OHCHR,” didn’t offer many clues.
Matthias Behnke, a representative of the UN office that authored the report, has since clarified to the Associated Press that the report is indeed referring to Mishrawi’s family. Behnke explained that the report does not “unequivocally conclude” that Mishrawi was killed by a Hamas munition, but said that evidence did point toward a rocket fired by a Palestinian group.