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Posts Tagged ‘Gaza’
Israeli Atrocities in Palestine – Photographic Evidence
January 17, 2009
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Israel ‘breaking law’ with Gaza war
January 16, 2009
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. |
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
As evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity mounts daily in Gaza, there are growing calls for an investigation into the conduct of all parties to the conflict.
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.
Israeli human rights groups speak out as death toll passes 1,000
January 15, 2009- The Guardian, Thursday 15 January 2009
The number of Palestinians killed by Israel’s offensive in Gaza climbed above 1,000 yesterday, despite repeated calls from the UN for a halt to the conflict.
With mounting concern about the hundreds of civilians killed, nine Israeli human rights groups wrote to their government warning of their “heavy suspicion … of grave violations of international humanitarian law by military forces”.
Among the sites hit yesterday was Sheikh Radwan cemetery. Thirty graves were destroyed, spreading rotting flesh over a wide area. The army said it was targeting a nearby weapons cache.
So far 1,010 Palestinians have died, including 315 children and 95 women, Dr Moawiya Hassanein, head of Gaza’s medical emergency services, told the Guardian. The number of injured after 19 days of fighting stood at 4,700, he said. On the Israeli side, 13 people have died, among them three civilians, and four soldiers accidentally killed by their own troops.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, which is based in Gaza and has field staff across the territory, believed at least 673 civilians had been killed – about two-thirds of the total. A more accurate count of civilian deaths is difficult, with journalists and international human rights observers banned from entering Gaza.
Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, was in Cairo for talks to halt the fighting. “My call is for an immediate end to violence in Gaza, and then to the Israeli military offensive and a halt to rocket attacks by Hamas,” he said. “It is intolerable that civilians bear the brunt of this conflict.”
Yesterday John Holmes, the UN’s humanitarian chief, told the security council: “The situation for the civilian population of Gaza is terrifying, and its psychological impact felt particularly by children and their parents, who feel helpless and unable to protect them.”
He added that Hamas’s rocket attacks on Israel violated international laws and must cease. “Yet any Israeli response must itself comply with international humanitarian law. Here, too, there is considerable and grave cause for concern.”
The Israeli military pressed on with its offensive yesterday, striking 20 sites across Gaza, including what it said were rocket launching sites, three smuggling tunnels, several armed gunmen and five buildings storing weapons.
Yet despite the intense bombing and artillery, militant rocket fire from Gaza has continued every day since the war began. Yesterday at least 16 rockets were fired into southern Israel, some reaching as far as Be’er Sheva and Ashdod.
Separately, guerrillas in southern Lebanon fired rockets into northern Israel yesterday. There were no casualties. The Israeli military fired mortars back.
The nine Israeli human rights groups, which include B’Tselem, Gisha, Amnesty International’s Israel section and Physicians for Human Rights, said accounts from Gaza showed the Israeli military was “making wanton use of lethal force” and called for a halt to attacks on civilians, access for civilians to escape the fighting, medical care for the injured, access for medical and rescue teams and the proper operation of electricity, water and sewage systems. Their unusually strong criticisms stand out in a country whose Jewish population at least has been united in extraordinarily strong support for the war in Gaza.
The desperate state of health facilities in Gaza was highlighted yesterday in the Lancet medical journal. Several mobile clinics and ambulances have been damaged by Israeli attacks, it notes, and at least six medical personnel killed. Hospitals and clinics have been forced to close. International law requires that all medical staff and facilities be protected at all times, even during armed conflict, said the Lancet. “Attacks on staff and facilities are serious violations of these laws,” it said.
Many doctors are working 24-hour shifts, ambulances cannot be maintained and are breaking down, while hospital equipment, medicines and anaesthetics, beds and medical staff are all in short supply. Hospitals and clinics have had their electricity supplies cut and are relying on “fragile back-up generators”.
Norwegian doctors Mads Gilbert and Erik Fosse wrote that during their spell working in al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City in the current conflict they had “witnessed the most horrific war injuries in men, women and children of all ages in numbers almost too large to comprehend. The wounded, dying and dead have streamed into the overcrowded hospital in endless convoys of ambulances and private cars and wrapped in blankets in the caring arms of others. The endless and intense bombardments from Israeli air, ground and naval forces have missed no targets, not even the hospital.”
Two Palestinian journalists working for an Iranian television station were charged in Israel yesterday with passing classified information to the enemy. They were accused of reporting the start of the ground invasion two weeks ago while the information was still under military censorship, and could face lengthy jail terms.
Medical staff recovers bodies of 22 Palestinians killed by Israel in Gaza city
January 14, 2009| [ 13/01/2009 – 04:50 PM ] |
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GAZA, (PIC)– Palestinian medical staff was able this morning to recover bodies of 22 Palestinian citizens killed during the IOF troops’ attempts to advance last night and early Tuesday into the Tel Al-Islam neighborhood, southeast Gaza city. The medical staff have not been able to have access to all bodies which are caught in crossfire in the area, according to Dr. Muawiya Hassanein, the director of emergency services in the health ministry. The Tel Al-Islam area witnessed fierce fighting between Palestinian resistance fighters and IOF troops who failed to break into the area after they took positions in nearby agricultural lands. According to Palestinian eyewitnesses, the Palestinian resistance fighters showed heroic death-defiance and managed to destroy more than 10 tanks and armored vehicles in the area. The eyewitnesses added that the ferocity of the resistance made the IOF troops shell and fire at the area randomly, where dozens of houses and buildings were completely destroyed, noting that the IOF troops used white phosphorous and incendiary shells during their attack. Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, managed during a successful ambush to kill and wound at dawn Tuesday a number of IOF troops who tried to infiltrate into east of Khan Younis city, south Gaza. In a communiqué received by the PIC, Al-Qassam Brigades said that its fighters detonated four anti-personnel explosive devices, and fired 15 mortar shells and one RPG at different Israeli special forces who tried to advance into Khuzaa, east of Khan Younis. The Hebrew radio reported that one of its soldiers was seriously wounded and three others sustained slight and moderate injuries after an Israeli brigade of paratroopers was attacked by Palestinian resistance fighters in the north of Gaza, alleging that the paratroopers were mistakenly shot by other Israeli troops. |
Israeli Troops Ordered to ‘Shoot Rather Than Ask Questions’
January 14, 2009Gaza-deployed Soldiers Appalled by Destruction as Reports of Civilian Deaths Grow
Posted January 13, 2009
“We are treating everything as hostile right now. We were told not to take chances – to shoot rather than ask questions.” That is the policy of the invading Israeli soldiers as described by one of their lieutenants. And indeed, they’re doing plenty of shooting. As for who they’re shooting, that’s one of those questions that not only are they not supposed to ask, they’d just as soon not answer.
Even among the invading army there is no small amount of shock at the destruction of residential neighborhoods. To quote the same soldier “it looks destroyed, demolished, like we were bombing it for years. You can’t imagine what damage we have done.” Nor can we rely on the international press to cover that damage, because they are still being kept from entering the strip by the Israeli military.
But we do get plenty of eyewitness accounts from the ground. The death toll has reportedly exceeded 975 now, with untold thousands wounded, and the promised “phase three” of the attacks haven’t even started in earnest yet. Israeli rights group B’Tselem reported that Israeli soldiers opened fire on a group of civilians trying to flee their homes, even though they had been ordered out by the Israeli military and were waving white flags at the time. The toll seems bound to rise as the troops move into the most densely populated parts of Gaza City.
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The Facts About Hamas and the War on Gaza
January 14, 2009By NORMAN FINKELSTEIN | Counterpunch, January 13, 2009
The record is fairly clear. You can find it on the Israeli website, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website. Israel broke the ceasefire by going into the Gaza and killing six or seven Palestinian militants. At that point—and now I’m quoting the official Israeli website—Hamas retaliated or, in retaliation for the Israeli attack, then launched the missiles.
Now, as to the reason why, the record is fairly clear as well. According to Ha’aretz, Defense Minister Barak began plans for this invasion before the ceasefire even began. In fact, according to yesterday’s Ha’aretz, the plans for the invasion began in March. And the main reasons for the invasion, I think, are twofold. Number one; to enhance what Israel calls its deterrence capacity, which in layman’s language basically means Israel’s capacity to terrorize the region into submission. After their defeat in July 2006 in Lebanon, they felt it important to transmit the message that Israel is still a fighting force, still capable of terrorizing those who dare defy its word.
And the second main reason for the attack is because Hamas was signaling that it wanted a diplomatic settlement of the conflict along the June 1967 border. That is to say, Hamas was signaling they had joined the international consensus, they had joined most of the 
international community, overwhelmingly the international community, in seeking a diplomatic settlement. And at that point, Israel was faced with what Israelis call a Palestinian peace offensive. And in order to defeat the peace offensive, they sought to dismantle Hamas.
As was documented in the April 2008 issue of Vanity Fair by the writer David Rose, basing himself on internal US documents, it was the United States in cahoots with the Palestinian Authority and Israel which were attempting a putsch on Hamas, and Hamas preempted the putsch. That, too, is no longer debatable or no longer a controversial claim.
The issue is can it rule in Gaza if Israel maintains a blockade and prevents economic activity among the Palestinians. The blockade, incidentally, was implemented before Hamas came to power. The blockade doesn’t even have anything to do with Hamas. The blockade came to—there were Americans who were sent over, in particular James Wolfensohn, to try to break the blockade after Israel redeployed its troops in Gaza.
The problem all along has been that Israel doesn’t want Gaza to develop, and Israel doesn’t want to resolve diplomatically the conflict, both the leadership in Damascus and the leadership in the Gaza have repeatedly made statements they’re willing to settle the conflict in the June 1967 border. The record is fairly clear. In fact, it’s unambiguously clear.
Every year, the United Nations General Assembly votes on a resolution entitled “Peaceful Settlement of the Palestine Question.” And every year the vote is the same: it’s the whole world on one side; Israel, the United States and some South Sea atolls and Australia on the other side. The vote this past year was 164-to-7. Every year since 1989—in 1989, the vote was 151-to-3, the whole world on one side, the United States, Israel and the island state of Dominica on the other side.
We have the Arab League, all twenty-two members of the Arab League, favoring a two-state settlement on the June 1967 border. We have the Palestinian Authority favoring that two-state settlement on the June 1967 border. We now have Hamas favoring that two-state settlement on the June 1967 border. The one and only obstacle is Israel, backed by the United States. That’s the problem.
Well, the record shows that Hamas wanted to continue the ceasefire, but only on condition that Israel eases the blockade. Long before Hamas began the retaliatory rocket attacks on Israel, Palestinians were facing a humanitarian crisis in Gaza because of the blockade. The former High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, described what was going on in Gaza as a destruction of a civilization. This was during the ceasefire period.
What does the record show? The record shows for the past twenty or more years, the entire international community has sought to settle the conflict in the June 1967 border with a just resolution of the refugee question. Are all 164 nations of the United Nations the rejectionists? And are the only people in favor of peace the United States, Israel, Nauru, Palau, Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Australia? Who are the rejectionists? Who’s opposing a peace?
The record shows that in every crucial issue raised at Camp David, then under the Clinton parameters, and then in Taba, at every single point, all the concessions came from the Palestinians. Israel didn’t make any concessions. Every concession came from the Palestinians. The Palestinians have repeatedly expressed a willingness to settle the conflict in accordance with international law.
The law is very clear. July 2004, the highest judicial body in the world, the International Court of Justice, ruled Israel has no title to any of the West Bank and any of Gaza. They have no title to Jerusalem. Arab East Jerusalem, according to the highest judicial body in the world, is occupied Palestinian territory. The International Court of Justice ruled all the settlements, all the settlements in the West Bank, are illegal under international law.
Now, the important point is, on all those questions, the Palestinians were willing to make concessions. They made all the concessions. Israel didn’t make any concessions.
I think it’s fairly clear what needs to happen. Number one, the United States and Israel have to join the rest of the international community, have to abide by international law. I don’t think international law should be trivialized. I think it’s a serious issue. If Israel is in defiance of international law, it should be called into account, just like any other state in the world.
Mr. Obama has to level with the American people. He has to be honest about what is the main obstacle to resolving the conflict. It’s not Palestinian rejectionism. It’s the refusal of Israel, backed by the United States government, to abide by international law, to abide by the opinion of the international community.
And the main challenge for all of us as Americans is to see through the lies.
Norman Finkelstein is author of five books, including Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, Beyond Chutzpah and The Holocaust Industry, which have been translated into more than 40 foreign editions. He is the son of Holocaust survivors. This article is an edited extract of the views of Finkelstein given at DemocracyNow.org. His website is www.NormanFinkelstein.com
Gaza Killings Trigger Call for War Crimes Probe
January 14, 2009
By Thalif Deen | Inter Press Service
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 13 (IPS) – With hundreds of civilians, mostly women and children, killed during nearly three weeks of fighting in Gaza, there is a growing demand either for an international tribunal or an international commission to investigate charges of war crimes committed by Israel.
But there are fears that any such move may be shot down by the United States, and possibly by other Western nations, which continue to politically temper their criticism of Israel despite violations of all the known international conventions protecting women, children, the wounded and the dying in war zones.
“On an inter-governmental level, the war crimes process is essentially subject to geopolitical control, which means in practice that the criminal wrongdoing of the most powerful [the U.S. government] and its closest friends [Israel] get a free pass,” Richard Falk, a professor of international law and a U.N. human rights expert, told IPS.
Despite widespread condemnation, this practice of “geopolitical impunity” is likely to shield Israel from formal scrutiny with respect to the alleged crimes of war and crimes against humanity associated with its military operations in Gaza since Dec. 27, he added.
Falk, who is the U.N. Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, was detained and expelled from an airport in Tel Aviv last month when he was on a U.N.-mandated assignment to probe human rights in the occupied territories.
As of Tuesday, the Palestinian death toll had risen to more than 900, mostly civilians, compared with over 10 Israelis, including those killed by Hamas’s rocket fire.
The London-based Amnesty International has asked the Security Council “to take firm action to ensure full accountability for war crimes and other serious abuses of international human rights and humanitarian law.”
The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay told a special session of the Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva that accountability must be ensured for violations of international law.
“I remind this Council that violations of international humanitarian law may constitute war crimes for which individual criminal responsibility may be invoked,” she said.
At the special session Monday, the HRC adopted a resolution calling for an “urgent independent international fact-finding mission” to investigate all violations of international human rights and humanitarian law by Israel.
Asked specifically about charges of “war crimes” in Gaza, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon refused to express his view on the unbridled killings of civilians.
“That’s something which the International Criminal Court (ICC) or other international organisations will have to determine,” he told reporters Monday, on the eve of his weeklong peace mission to the Middle East.
But the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), which is calling for an international commission of investigation, points out that Israel has not ratified the statute of the ICC.
“Activating the ICC jurisdiction for these crimes implies for the U.N. Security Council to refer the situation to the ICC,” in order for the ICC prosecutor to initiate an investigation, FIDH said in a letter to the 15-member U.N. body.
But any such Security Council action will most likely be vetoed by the United States, a longstanding ally of Israel.
Besides the ICC, which was established in 2003, there have been special criminal tribunals or special courts created to prosecute war crimes or genocide in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Lebanon, Cambodia and East Timor.
“There certainly should be a tribunal,” Michael Ratner, president of the New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights, told IPS.
While it would look at war crimes committed by all parties, Hamas’s actions pale in comparison to the murders committed by Israel, he said.
“The continued impunity of Israel for crimes it has committed encourages it in perpetrating gross violations of humanitarian law,” said Ratner, who is also adjunct professor law at Columbia University.
“A tribunal is essential, [but] the United States will likely veto such a Security Counsel resolution. By doing so, it is enabling and condoning war crimes,” he warned.
Stephen Zunes, professor of politics and international studies at the University of San Francisco, said: “A strong case can be made for an investigation into war crimes committed by Israeli armed forces.”
Since the Gaza Strip is legally a non-self-governing territory, the United Nations has a particular responsibility to ensure that those guilty of war crimes are prosecuted, he added.
“Such prosecution, however, would be more appropriate if pursued through the International Criminal Court, which did not exist at the time special tribunals were set up for Yugoslavia, Cambodia and Rwanda,” Zunes told IPS.
By pursuing cases through the ICC rather than a special tribunal, it would lessen the likelihood of charges that the United Nations was once again unfairly singling out Israel for violations of international humanitarian law, he added.
Falk said “the most that we can expect are fact-finding and investigative missions” established by the Human Rights Council in Geneva (as proposed in its Special Session) and by the General Assembly (as an outcome of an upcoming Ninth Special Session).
“I think these symbolic steps are important, and they will undoubtedly be opposed by the United States and Israel, and Israel will in all likelihood not allow such initiatives to enter Gaza,” he said.
This will confirm concealment, a virtual admission of guilt, and will still enable authoritative reports and recommendations for a criminal accountability mechanism to be established, which the General Assembly has the authority to do under Article 22 of the U.N. Charter, Falk said.
There are some other possibilities for establishing legal responsibility and criminal accountability, especially well-organised civil society initiatives.
He pointed out that one model would be the tribunal process associated with the Iraq War, with sessions in some 20 countries, and a culminating Iraq War Tribunal held in Istanbul, Turkey in June 2005.
“There exists the political climate to organise such a tribunal process for Gaza, and it will have worldwide resonance.”
In the course of such a democratically conceived grassroots tribunal process, there would also be an opportunity to consider the implications of the U.S. role in providing vast military assistance and unconditional diplomatic support to Israel, as well as to consider the relative passivity of Europe, Arab neighbours, and others, he added.
Peace and Justice Post 
More photos of latest Israeli attack on Palestinians of Gaza
January 18, 2009Source: Desert Peace
April 17, 2008 at 8:33 am
Hat tip to The Philistine for publishing these.
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Tags:ethnic cleansing, Gaza, genocide, Israel, Israeli crimes, Palestine, photos, Soldier Brutality, terrorism, war crimes, Zionism.
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