The president of the United Nations General Assembly has accused Israel of violating international law with its war on Gaza in which almost 1,100 Palestinians have been killed, nearly half of them civilians. “Gaza is ablaze. It has been turned into a burning hell,” Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann told an emergency session of the UN General Assembly in New York on Thursday. He said Israel’s offensive was “a war against a helpless, defenceless and imprisoned people” and accused Israel of carrying out attacks on civilian targets. “The violations of international law inherent in the Gaza assault have been well documented: collective punishment, disproportionate military force [and] attacks on civilian targets, including homes, mosques, universities, schools,” he said. He also rebuked UN member-states for their lack of action over the crisis, saying: “The [UN Security Council] may have found itself unable or unwilling to take the necessary steps to impose an immediate ceasefire, but outsourcing that effort to one or two governments, or through the quartet, does not relieve the council of its own responsibilities under the UN charter. “The council cannot disavow its collective responsibility. It cannot continue to fiddle while Gaza burns.” Ryad Mansour, the Palestinian observer at the UN, called for an independent investigation of Israel’s “grave breaches and systematic violations of international law”. “Since this crisis began, it is without a doubt that a multitude of war crimes have been perpetrated by the occupying power [Israel],” he said while also calling for “measures for the protection of the defenceless Palestinian civilian population.” Gabriela Shalev, the Israeli ambassador to the UN, dismissed the session as a “cynical, hateful and politicised [attempt] to de-legitimize Israel’s fundamental right to defend its citizens”. Gaza war ‘genocide’
The emergency meeting had been requested by the 118-member UN member states making up the non-aligned movement.An Israeli delegate had sought to block the session on procedural grounds by arguing that under the UN charter the 192-member assembly could not rule on a matter already being tackled by the Security Council, but the move was dismissed. D’Escoto noted that the Security Council last week had called for a Gaza ceasefire leading to the withdrawal of Israeli forces. “Prime Minister Olmert’s recent statement disavowing the authority of Resolution 1860 [the Security Council resolution] clearly places Israel as a state in contempt of international law and the United Nations,” d’Escoto added. He urged the assembly to agree its own non-binding assembly resolution reflecting “the urgency of our commitment to end this slaughter” in Gaza. Israel has continued its offensive regardless of the resolution which was also rejected by Hamas. D’Escoto, a former Nicaraguan foreign minister, told Al Jazeera on Tuesday that Israel’s killings of Palestinians in Gaza amounted to “genocide”. Almost 1,100 Palestinians have been killed during Israel’s Gaza offensive, which Israel says is to stop Palestinian rocketfire coming from Gaza. |
Archive for January, 2009
Israel ‘breaking law’ with Gaza war
January 16, 2009
David Miliband: Bush’s War on Terror was misleading and mistaken
January 16, 2009The Times, UK, January 16, 2009
Speaking in Mumbai, David Miliband said that the idea of a war on terror gave a false notion “of a unified, transnational enemy, embodied in the figure of Osama bin Laden and the organisation of al-Qaeda”.
He suggested that the phrase had “inadvertently sustained al-Qaeda’s propaganda” and risked magnifying the threats faced. “The more we lump terrorist groups together, the more we play into the hands of those seeking to unify groups with little in common,” he added.
The speech, which was given at the Taj Mahal Palace, one of two hotels struck in November’s terrorist attack, ranked among the British Government’s harshest critiques of Mr Bush’s foreign policy, but came just five days before the 43rd President makes way for Barack Obama.
David Miliband should have chosen another venue – and another time – to take on President Bush 
Mr Miliband shrugged off suggestions that his comments would have been braver had they been delivered earlier in Mr Bush’s tenure. The key issue was one of semantic accuracy, he said. “Terrorism is a deadly tactic, not an institution or an ideology.”
Democracies must respond to terrorism “by championing the rule of law, not subordinating it”, he added, citing Guantánamo Bay and endorsing Mr Obama’s pledge to close the controversial detention camp.
Mr Miliband said that the term War on Terror had some merit — for capturing the need to tackle terrorism urgently and with force. But it also invited “invidious comparisons” between organisations as diverse as the Tamil Tigers, who are fighting for an ethnic Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka, and Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistan-based faction that Indian and British officials believe was behind the Mumbai atrocities, which was founded to drive India out of Kashmir.
The phrase also suggested that terror had to be tackled primarily by military means, Mr Miliband said, but history showed that American and British forces “could not kill [their] way out of the problems of insurgency and civil strife” in Iraq.
The term War on Terror was first used by President Bush in an address to a joint session of Congress on September 20, 2001.
Hillary Clinton coined a slogan this week when she peppered her remarks before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with the term “smart power”. The New York Times said: “It means using all the levers of influence — diplomatic, economic, military, legal, political and cultural — to get what you want.”
— Kamal Shah, Pakistan’s Interior Secretary, said that 71 people had been arrested and 124 were under surveillance in a crackdown on groups allegedly linked to the Mumbai attacks. (AP)
Israelis bombard Gaza Strip UN HQ
January 16, 2009
OBLITERATION: Israeli air strikes destroying a building in the Gaza Strip.
ISRAELI forces bombarded the United Nations headquarters in the Gaza Strip with phosphorus shells on Thursday, as hundreds of refugees cowered inside.
UN secretary-general Ban Ki Moon, who is in Tel Aviv on a mission to end Israel’s devastating offensive, expressed “outrage” over the bombing, which set buildings ablaze and injured at least three people.
Only that morning, the UN compound in Gaza was put to use as a makeshift shelter for hundreds of Gaza City residents seeking sanctuary from the relentless shelling.
Two of the shells hit a UN warehouse housing humanitarian supplies, setting off intense fires.
UN relief operations director John Ging said: “They are phosphorus fires so they are extremely difficult to put out because if you put water on it, it will just generate toxic fumes and do nothing to stop the burning.
“This is going to burn down the entire warehouse. Thousands and thousands of tons of food, medical supplies and other emergency assistance are there,” he warned.
UN spokesman Adnan Abu Hasna said that the UN had given Israel the co-ordinates of the building and that the compound was also clearly marked with UN flags and logos.
Israeli soldiers, backed by tanks and warplanes, pushed into a crowded Gaza City neighbourhood for the first time, sending terrified residents fleeing for cover.
Shells struck the al-Quds Hospital, causing fires that trapped about 400 patients and staff inside the main building.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Five high-rise apartment buildings and a building housing media outlets in Gaza City were also hit, injuring several journalists.
Bullets entered another building housing Associated Press offices and they lodged into the wall of a room where two staffers were working, but no-one was wounded.
The Foreign Press Association, which represents journalists covering Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, demanded a halt to attacks on press buildings.
Over 1,066 Palestinians, including at least 311 children, have been killed and 4,700 have been injured since Tel Aviv kicked off Operation Cast Lead on December 27.
Addressing soldiers at a southern base on Thursday, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak declared that the offensive would continue, but that Israel’s eyes were “also open to the possibility of winding up this operation and consummating Israel’s exceptional accomplishments through diplomacy.”
PM Ismail Haniyeh: My message to the West – Israel must stop the slaughter
January 15, 2009By Ismail Haniyeh, the Palestinian Prime Minister
The Independent, Thursday, 15 January 2009
I write this article to Western readers across the social and political spectrum as the Israeli war machine continues to massacre my people in Gaza. To date, almost 1,000 have been killed, nearly half of whom are women and children. Last week’s bombing of the UNRWA (UN Relief Works Agency) school in the Jabalya refugee camp was one of the most despicable crimes imaginable, as hundreds of civilians had abandoned their homes and sought refuge with the international agency only to be mercilessly shelled and bombed by Israel. Forty-six children and women were killed in that heinous attack while scores were injured.
Evidently, Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005 did not end its occupation nor, as a result, its international obligations as an occupying power. It continued to control and dominate our borders by land, sea and air. Indeed the UN has confirmed that between 2005 and 2008, the Israeli army killed nearly 1,250 Palestinians in Gaza, including 222 children. For most of that period the border crossings have remained effectively closed, with only limited quantities of food, industrial fuel, animal feed and a few other essential items, allowed in.
Despite its frantic efforts to conceal it, the root cause of Israel’s criminal war on Gaza is the elections of January 2006, which saw Hamas win by a substantial majority. What occurred next was that Israel alongside the United States and the European Union joined forces in an attempt to quash the democratic will of the Palestinian people. They set about reversing the decision first by obstructing the formation of a national unity government and then by making a living hell for the Palestinian people through economic strangulation. The abject failure of all these machinations finally led to this vicious war. Israel’s objective is to silence all voices that express the will of the Palestinian; thereafter it would impose its own terms for a final settlement depriving us of our land, our right to Jerusalem as the rightful capital of our future state and the Palestinian refugees’ right to return to their homes.
Ultimately, the comprehensive siege on Gaza, which manifestly violated the Fourth Geneva Convention, prohibited the most basic medical supplies to our hospitals. It disallowed the delivery of fuel and supply of electricity to our population. And on top of all of this inhumanity, it denied them food and the freedom of movement, even to seek treatment. This led to the avoidable death of hundreds of patients and the spiralling rise of malnutrition among our children.
Palestinians are appalled that the members of the European Union do not view this obscene siege as a form of aggression. Despite the overwhelming evidence, they shamelessly assert that Hamas brought this catastrophe upon the Palestinian people because it did not renew the truce. Yet we ask, did Israel honour the terms of the ceasefire mediated by Egypt in June? It did not. The agreement stipulated a lifting of the siege and an end to attacks in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Despite our full compliance, the Israelis persisted in murdering Palestinians in Gaza as well as the West Bank during what became known as the year of the Annapolis peace.
None of the atrocities committed against our schools, universities, mosques, ministries and civil infra-structure would deter us in the pursuit of our national rights. Undoubtedly, Israel could demolish every building in the Gaza Strip but it would never shatter our determination or steadfastness to live in dignity on our land. Surely, if the gathering of civilians in a building only to then bomb it or the use of phosphorous bombs and missiles are not war crimes, then what is? How many more international treaties and conventions must Zionist Israel breach before it is held accountable? There is not a capital in the world today where free and decent people are not outraged by this brutal oppression. Neither Palestine nor the world would be the same after these crimes.
There is only one way forward and no other. Our condition for a new ceasefire is clear and simple. Israel must end its criminal war and slaughter of our people, lift completely and unconditionally its illegal siege of the Gaza Strip, open all our border crossings and completely withdraw from Gaza. After this we would consider future options. Ultimately, the Palestinians are a people struggling for freedom from occupation and the establishment of an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital and the return of refugees to their villages from which they were expelled. Whatever the cost, the continuation of Israel’s massacres will neither break our will nor our aspiration for freedom and independence.
The writer is the Prime Minister of Gaza Palestinians
Growing calls for investigations and accountability in Gaza conflict
January 15, 2009Philip Luther of Amnesty International explains the human rights issues in the Israel/Gaza conflict
© Amnesty International
Smoke rises during Israeli airstrike, Gaza City, 13 January 2009
© APGraphicsBank
Amnesty International has urged all parties to the Gaza conflict, as well as the international community, to ensure that a thorough, independent and impartial investigation is established without delay into abuses of international human rights and humanitarian law, and to ensure full accountability.
These include Israeli attacks that have been directed at civilians or civilian buildings in the Gaza Strip, or which are disproportionate, and Palestinian armed groups’ indiscriminate rocket attacks into civilian population centres in southern Israel.
Where appropriate, states must be ready to initiate criminal investigations and carry out prosecutions before their own courts if the evidence warrants it.
The Israeli army’s attacks are often disproportionate and have killed hundreds of unarmed civilians. Attacks are also directed at civilians and civilian buildings.
Most of the civilian population in Gaza has no access to the humanitarian aid on which they depend. They have nowhere to go for safety, while hospitals are overstretched and lacking basic necessities.
Meanwhile, Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups persist in firing indiscriminate rockets into Israel.
Amnesty International has called on Israel, Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups to immediately cease all attacks on civilians and disproportionate attacks which harm civilians.
According to Amnesty International:
- All parties should abide by a humanitarian truce – the current lull in fighting of three hours a day is grossly insufficient and anyway has not been fully respected in practice – so as to allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza and to be distributed to the civilian population.
- Israel, Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups must also respect the role of medical personnel and ambulances in assisting the wounded. The Israeli authorities should allow the free movement of ambulances to collect the wounded and the dead at all times. Israel must also permit immediate and unfettered access for humanitarian workers, human rights workers and journalists.
Venezuela cuts ties with Israel over Gaza attacks
January 15, 2009CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela has cut ties with Israel in protest over its military offensive in the Gaza Strip, the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.
Last week President Hugo Chavez expelled Israel’s ambassador from Venezuela over the attacks, which have sparked international condemnation.
“Venezuela … has definitively decided to break diplomatic ties with the state of Israel given the inhumane persecution of the Palestinian people carried out by the authorities of Israel,” said a statement read over state television.
Israel’s 20-day offensive, launched to halt rocket attacks on Israel by Hamas Islamist militants, has killed more than 1,000 Palestinians. A Palestinian rights group said 670 of those killed were civilians. Thirteen Israelis have been killed — three civilians hit by Hamas rocket fire and 10 soldiers.
Socialist Chavez is a harsh critic of both Israel and the United States and has called the Israeli offensive in Gaza a Palestinian “holocaust.”
Bolivian President Evo Morales, a close Chavez ally, on Wednesday also cut ties with Israel to the protest the attacks.
An envoy from Israel, which is under increasing pressure to negotiate a ceasefire, is scheduled to meet Egyptian mediators in Cairo on Thursday.
Chavez in 2006 threatened to break ties with Israel over its five-week war in Lebanon in a diplomatic spat that led both countries to withdraw their envoys.
(Reporting by Brian Ellsworth; editing by Mohammad Zargham)
Guantanamo detainee ‘was tortured’, Pentagon official admits
January 15, 2009Norwegian Philosopher Arne Naess Dies at 96
January 15, 2009Published on Wednesday, January 14, 2009 by the Associated Press
OSLO, Norway – Norwegian philosopher, writer and mountaineer Arne Naess, best known for launching the concept of “deep ecology,” has died, his publisher said Tuesday. He was 96.
![[A 2004 file picture of Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess, who died Monday, Jan 12, 2009, at the age of 96. Naess was widely regarded as the foremost Norwegian philosopher of the 20th century, and was the founder of 'deep ecology'. His philosophical work focused on Spinoza, Buddhism and Gandhi. He was the youngest person to be appointed full professor at the University of Oslo. (AP Photo / Erlend Aas / Scanpix Norway) ]](https://i0.wp.com/www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/naess-0114.jpg "naess-0114.jpg")
A 2004 file picture of Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess, who died Monday, Jan 12, 2009, at the age of 96. Naess was widely regarded as the foremost Norwegian philosopher of the 20th century, and was the founder of ‘deep ecology’. His philosophical work focused on Spinoza, Buddhism and Gandhi. He was the youngest person to be appointed full professor at the University of Oslo. (AP Photo / Erlend Aas / Scanpix Norway)Naess is credited with creating the deep ecology concept, promoting the idea that Earth as a planet has as much right as its inhabitants, such as humans, to survive and flourish. He cited the 1962 book “Silent Spring,” by Rachel Carson as a key inspiration.Naess’ publisher, Erling Kagge, told The Associated Press that the philosopher died in his sleep Monday.
“Naess’ ecological philosophy is still important to Greenpeace,” said Truls Gulowsen, leader of the group’s Norwegian division. He said Naess was the first chairman of Greenpeace Norway when it was founded in 1988.
Arne Dekke Eide Naess was born on Jan. 27, 1912 in Oslo, the son of banker and businessman Ragnar Naess and Christine Dekke.
He earned a doctorate at the University of Oslo and, at age 27, became its youngest professor. He wrote numerous books and articles, including what the University of Oslo called his key work “Interpretation and Preciseness.”
Naess was also a driven mountaineer, and led the first expedition to conquer the 7,708 meter (25,289 foot) mountain Tirich Mir in Pakistan in 1954. He led a second Norwegian expedition up the mountain in 1964.
After stepping down from his university post in 1970, he became active in protecting the environment, writing extensively on the subject and joining protests.
Funeral plans have not yet been released.
Peace and Justice Post 
Attacks Are Inhuman, Peace Activists Tell Olmert, Barak
January 16, 2009Published on Thursday, January 15, 2009 by The Sydney Morning Herald
by Jason Koutsoukis
Despite graphic images of the carnage in Gaza being shown around Israel and the high number of Palestinian casualties, public support for the war remains high.
A poll commissioned by the liberal daily newspaper Haaretz yesterday found 82 per cent of people surveyed believe that Israel has not gone too far with its use of military force during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza.The war in Gaza also appears to have gone some way towards rebuilding public confidence in the military following the perceived failures of Israel’s 2006 war in Lebanon, with 78 per cent of people judging the war a success.
But not all Israelis are in favour of the war.
On Wednesday a coalition of nine Israeli human rights groups convened to urge an immediate halt to the fighting in the Gaza Strip which they said was on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe.
In an open letter to the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert. and the Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, the groups said a commission of inquiry would be needed after the conflict ended to investigate alleged Israeli war crimes.
Michael Sfard, a lawyer with the Israeli human rights group Yesh Din that was a part of Wednesday’s press conference, told the Herald it was time Israelis looked into the mirror.
“I think we have become so used to violence that when the sort of things that are happening in Gaza are shown, people don’t care any more,” Mr Sfard said.
“Several years ago, the killing of 15 Hamas militants by the IDF [Israel Defence Forces] caused a major moral revision here within Israel.
“Now [there have been] 1000 people killed in Gaza, many of them children, and there is very little national debate about whether this is right or wrong.”
The groups, which also included Amnesty International, B’Tselem, Gisha, and Physicians for Human Rights, also presented six cases in which they say IDF troops fired on medical personnel, killing 12 people.
They said there have been 15 hits on medical facilities during the conflict, including clinics and medical storage facilities.
“I care about humanity, and what is happening here is inhuman,” said Professor Zvi Bentwich, the head of the Centre for Tropical Diseases and AIDS at Ben Gurion University.
“There is no sense whatsoever of proportionality, it’s a dreadful and callous disregard for human life,” Professor Bentwich said.
Copyright © 2009. The Sydney Morning Herald
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Tags:Ehud Olmert, Haaretz, israeli carnage in Gaza, Israeli human rights groups, Michael Sfard, Palestinian casualties, war in Gaza
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