9 may 2015
Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, hailed the European Parliament Group’s call for halting partnership, agreements, and economic privileges with Israel.
This came in the wake of publishing the abstract of the United Nations enquiry which has proved that Israel targeted and hit the UN headquarters and the UNRWA headquarters including civilians in Gaza.
Israel targeted the UN headquarters despite including civilians who took them as shelters for protection from Israeli rockets and bombs in last summer’s Israeli aggression on the besieged enclave.
In a statement on Saturday afternoon, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum called for more of such efforts and decisions by all Arab and international authorities which will constitute a deterrent to the Israeli occupation and offer actual protection for the Palestinian people.
Barhoum stressed the need to hasten the procedures of prosecuting Israeli leaders for their crimes and violations before local and international courts.
This came in the wake of publishing the abstract of the United Nations enquiry which has proved that Israel targeted and hit the UN headquarters and the UNRWA headquarters including civilians in Gaza.
Israel targeted the UN headquarters despite including civilians who took them as shelters for protection from Israeli rockets and bombs in last summer’s Israeli aggression on the besieged enclave.
In a statement on Saturday afternoon, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum called for more of such efforts and decisions by all Arab and international authorities which will constitute a deterrent to the Israeli occupation and offer actual protection for the Palestinian people.
Barhoum stressed the need to hasten the procedures of prosecuting Israeli leaders for their crimes and violations before local and international courts.
6 may 2015
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) on Tuesday denied a false allegation made against it by former head of the Israeli army over an alleged incident which occurred during the 2014 summer Israeli aggression on Gaza.
According to WAFA Palestinian News & Info Agency, the organization stressed that the allegation made by former head of the army – that a weapon was fired from an UNRWA school in Gaza and claimed the life of an Israeli child in a kibbutz in southern Israel – was later proven wrong.
On the record UNRWA quote via Chris Gunness:
"The head of the Israeli army during the summer war in Gaza has reportedly made the allegation that a weapon fired from an UNRWA school in Gaza killed an Israeli child in a kibbutz in southern Israel.
According to WAFA Palestinian News & Info Agency, the organization stressed that the allegation made by former head of the army – that a weapon was fired from an UNRWA school in Gaza and claimed the life of an Israeli child in a kibbutz in southern Israel – was later proven wrong.
On the record UNRWA quote via Chris Gunness:
"The head of the Israeli army during the summer war in Gaza has reportedly made the allegation that a weapon fired from an UNRWA school in Gaza killed an Israeli child in a kibbutz in southern Israel.
Screen cap of Israeli army spokesperson twitter account
This allegation was made by the Israeli Army in August 2014. However, it is false. Less than 2 hours after it was first made by the Israeli army, the Israeli army itself officially retracted the claim and issued a correction through the Twitter account of its Spokesperson [see below].
It is extremely disappointing that a former head of the Israeli army should repeat an allegation publicly retracted by his own spokesperson. It is unfortunate and creates a hostile environment for humanitarian agencies. Officials should ensure accuracy of their public statements."
christopher gunness | spokesperson, director of advocacy and strategic communications
unrwa | office of the commissioner general | jerusalem
t: +972 2 589 0267 | m: +972 54 240 2659 | f: +972 2 589 0240
e: [email protected] | skype: chrisrobertgunness l Twitter: @ChrisGunness
This allegation was made by the Israeli Army in August 2014. However, it is false. Less than 2 hours after it was first made by the Israeli army, the Israeli army itself officially retracted the claim and issued a correction through the Twitter account of its Spokesperson [see below].
It is extremely disappointing that a former head of the Israeli army should repeat an allegation publicly retracted by his own spokesperson. It is unfortunate and creates a hostile environment for humanitarian agencies. Officials should ensure accuracy of their public statements."
christopher gunness | spokesperson, director of advocacy and strategic communications
unrwa | office of the commissioner general | jerusalem
t: +972 2 589 0267 | m: +972 54 240 2659 | f: +972 2 589 0240
e: [email protected] | skype: chrisrobertgunness l Twitter: @ChrisGunness
5 may 2015
As a former sniper with the Israeli army, I am calling for for an investigation of the events that took place in Gaza last year
The conflict in the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2014 was the most violent and destructive round of fighting experienced in Gaza in recent years. According to the UN, 2,205 Palestinians lost their lives, 18,000 homes throughout Gaza were damaged or destroyed and 108,000 Palestinians were left homeless. This unprecedented scale of death and destruction is not a matter of chance and should surprise no one – it is the result of a deliberate change in recent years in the way the Israeli army (IDF) conducts its wars.
This change began in 2005, when Professor Asa Kasher and Major General (res.) Amos Yadlin published a paper called “Military Ethics of Fighting Terror: An Israeli Perspective.” This paper offers a radically changed perspective on the IDF’s obligation to avoid harming innocent lives. It defines a “hierarchy of lives” with four levels. The lives of Israeli citizens come first, followed by the lives of IDF soldiers. The lives of enemy civilians come next and enemy combatants come last. This hierarchy determines that the army’s duty is to do everything in its power to prevent harm to IDF soldiers, even if it causes probable harm to the lives of innocent Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
This doctrine shaped the IDF’s mode of action in Gaza and influenced the rules of engagement Israeli soldiers received last summer during Operation Protective Edge, as indicated in over 60 soldiers’ testimonies collected by Breaking the Silence. One testifier described the rules of engagement as follows: “The instructions are to shoot right away. Whoever you spot – be they armed or unarmed, no matter what. The instructions are very clear. Any person you run into, that you see with your eyes – shoot to kill. It’s an explicit instruction.” Instructions of this kind were given to soldiers of all ranks.
A second doctrine that shaped the IDF’s approach during Protective Edge was the “Dahiya Doctrine”, adopted by the IDF since the Second Lebanon War in 2006. In an interview in 2008, the IDF’s current Chief of Staff, Gadi Eizenkot (then head of the army’s Northern Command), described the doctrine bluntly: “What happened in the Dahiya quarter in Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which they fire at Israel. We will apply a disproportionate amount of force and cause massive damage and destruction. As far as we are concerned, these are military bases.” Major General (res.) Dr. Gabriel Siboni argued: “When the next confrontation breaks out, the IDF will need to act quickly, resolutely, and with unprecedented force against the threat and actions of the enemy, in order to harm and punish, on levels that will require long and expensive rehabilitative processes.”
In line with this rationale, IDF actions included destruction that had no correlation to the level of risk to the forces or to Israeli citizens. Such actions were designed to exact a heavy price and increase Israel’s deterrence against Gaza. For example, one soldier testified about a heavy bombardment after the forces began withdrawing from Gaza, when a ceasefire was about to take hold: “After we left, I heard a boom. I looked back and I saw an air bombardment, and they told us, ‘Yeah, there’s going to be a cease-fire, so we want to have “the final word” before we leave.’”
These doctrines shaped the IDF’s conduct during all stages of combat in Gaza. Principles like the “purity of arms” and the “value of human life,” which once stood at the basis of the IDF’s code of ethics, were abandoned.
READ MORE
The testimonies of Israeli soldiers provided to group
Netanyahu 'has never believed in two state solution'
Cameron says Israel was right to defend itself over Gaza attacks
The extremely permissive rules of engagement last summer point to a fundamental change in the norms that guide IDF combat, which peaked during Operation Protective Edge. According to senior IDF officials, it will continue to shape the IDF’s approach in future conflicts.
The IDF has declared the establishment of an investigative team charged with examining any deviations from IDF protocol during the operation. During my army service, I was exposed to the IDF’s investigative mechanisms. I am now a member of Breaking the Silence, an organization that has been observing the IDF’s policies in the occupied Palestinian territories for nearly 11 years. I know that these mechanisms are not capable of investigating the wider policy that guides the IDF’s actions. At best, only some junior soldiers will be held responsible for isolated incidents.
Therefore, we call for an extensive and thorough investigation of the events that took place in Gaza in the summer of 2014. This investigation must be conducted by an external and independent entity authorized to investigate the political and military leadership that developed and approved these policies – not just the soldiers who carried them out.
Ron Zaidel served as a sniper in the Nahal Brigade of the IDF and is currently a researcher at Breaking the Silence.
The conflict in the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2014 was the most violent and destructive round of fighting experienced in Gaza in recent years. According to the UN, 2,205 Palestinians lost their lives, 18,000 homes throughout Gaza were damaged or destroyed and 108,000 Palestinians were left homeless. This unprecedented scale of death and destruction is not a matter of chance and should surprise no one – it is the result of a deliberate change in recent years in the way the Israeli army (IDF) conducts its wars.
This change began in 2005, when Professor Asa Kasher and Major General (res.) Amos Yadlin published a paper called “Military Ethics of Fighting Terror: An Israeli Perspective.” This paper offers a radically changed perspective on the IDF’s obligation to avoid harming innocent lives. It defines a “hierarchy of lives” with four levels. The lives of Israeli citizens come first, followed by the lives of IDF soldiers. The lives of enemy civilians come next and enemy combatants come last. This hierarchy determines that the army’s duty is to do everything in its power to prevent harm to IDF soldiers, even if it causes probable harm to the lives of innocent Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
This doctrine shaped the IDF’s mode of action in Gaza and influenced the rules of engagement Israeli soldiers received last summer during Operation Protective Edge, as indicated in over 60 soldiers’ testimonies collected by Breaking the Silence. One testifier described the rules of engagement as follows: “The instructions are to shoot right away. Whoever you spot – be they armed or unarmed, no matter what. The instructions are very clear. Any person you run into, that you see with your eyes – shoot to kill. It’s an explicit instruction.” Instructions of this kind were given to soldiers of all ranks.
A second doctrine that shaped the IDF’s approach during Protective Edge was the “Dahiya Doctrine”, adopted by the IDF since the Second Lebanon War in 2006. In an interview in 2008, the IDF’s current Chief of Staff, Gadi Eizenkot (then head of the army’s Northern Command), described the doctrine bluntly: “What happened in the Dahiya quarter in Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which they fire at Israel. We will apply a disproportionate amount of force and cause massive damage and destruction. As far as we are concerned, these are military bases.” Major General (res.) Dr. Gabriel Siboni argued: “When the next confrontation breaks out, the IDF will need to act quickly, resolutely, and with unprecedented force against the threat and actions of the enemy, in order to harm and punish, on levels that will require long and expensive rehabilitative processes.”
In line with this rationale, IDF actions included destruction that had no correlation to the level of risk to the forces or to Israeli citizens. Such actions were designed to exact a heavy price and increase Israel’s deterrence against Gaza. For example, one soldier testified about a heavy bombardment after the forces began withdrawing from Gaza, when a ceasefire was about to take hold: “After we left, I heard a boom. I looked back and I saw an air bombardment, and they told us, ‘Yeah, there’s going to be a cease-fire, so we want to have “the final word” before we leave.’”
These doctrines shaped the IDF’s conduct during all stages of combat in Gaza. Principles like the “purity of arms” and the “value of human life,” which once stood at the basis of the IDF’s code of ethics, were abandoned.
READ MORE
The testimonies of Israeli soldiers provided to group
Netanyahu 'has never believed in two state solution'
Cameron says Israel was right to defend itself over Gaza attacks
The extremely permissive rules of engagement last summer point to a fundamental change in the norms that guide IDF combat, which peaked during Operation Protective Edge. According to senior IDF officials, it will continue to shape the IDF’s approach in future conflicts.
The IDF has declared the establishment of an investigative team charged with examining any deviations from IDF protocol during the operation. During my army service, I was exposed to the IDF’s investigative mechanisms. I am now a member of Breaking the Silence, an organization that has been observing the IDF’s policies in the occupied Palestinian territories for nearly 11 years. I know that these mechanisms are not capable of investigating the wider policy that guides the IDF’s actions. At best, only some junior soldiers will be held responsible for isolated incidents.
Therefore, we call for an extensive and thorough investigation of the events that took place in Gaza in the summer of 2014. This investigation must be conducted by an external and independent entity authorized to investigate the political and military leadership that developed and approved these policies – not just the soldiers who carried them out.
Ron Zaidel served as a sniper in the Nahal Brigade of the IDF and is currently a researcher at Breaking the Silence.
4 may 2015
The State of Palestine’s ascension to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court offers the global tribunal a choice between two clear paths into the future. By launching a serious prosecution of Israel’s crimes against Palestinians, the court can begin to repair its tarnished reputation, restoring confidence in the impartiality of the justice it dispenses. Its failure to do so would confirm growing suspicions that it has little purpose beyond helping the world’s old empires police their former colonies.
The ICC already faced a crisis of legitimacy due to its narrow focus on African leaders. Its 21 cases have stemmed from the nine full investigations it has launched, each in Africa. This gross disparity in the court’s attention has sparked predictable discontent among member states of the African Union. At an emergency AU summit in October 2013, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, whose charges the court would dismiss 14 months later, called it “the toy of declining imperial powers.”
Meanwhile the court rejected numerous opportunities to defend Palestinians, even as Israeli encroachments on their land and attacks on their lives escalated. On January 22, 2009, four days after Israel’s first military onslaught against the besieged Gaza Strip ended, the Palestinian leadership filed a declaration accepting ICC jurisdiction. Then-prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo refused to accept it, claiming that Palestine’s observer status at the United Nations did not qualify it as a state.
Following another round of Israel-inflicted bloodshed in the Gaza Strip, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to afford Palestine non-member observer state status on November 29, 2012. The ICC’s new prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, once again declined to open an investigation, arguing that the court could not treat Palestine’s new status retroactively for purposes of legal jurisdiction.
Last November, Bensouda blocked further investigation of killings by Israeli naval commandos of nine Turkish activists and one Turkish-American on a flotilla challenging Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip. She said that although her office’s preliminary examination found “a reasonable basis” to suspect war crimes, the deaths lacked “sufficient gravity” to merit further action by the court.
Defenders of the ICC may argue that the court faced substantial hurdles to establishing its jurisdiction in Palestine, particularly reluctance by Pres. Mahmoud Abbas to claim statehood at the UN and ratify the Rome Statute. But its critics will note that many African governments joined the court under pressure from European donor countries, often as a condition for participation in the Cotonou Agreement, a trade pact offering duty-free access to EU markets.
Through their membership, Palestinians have withstood the opposite sort of pressure. In the United States, a major backer of the Palestinian Authority, Pres. Barack Obama signed an appropriations bill mandating an end of aid to the PA if the Palestinian leaderships files or “actively supports” a case against Israel at the ICC. And the PA’s tax revenues, collected by Israel as the occupying power, remain punitively frozen for months after Palestinians ratified the Rome Statute, crippling local administration and impoverishing families.
A legal system with a purview determined by a small number of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful governments, many of which have chosen to exempt themselves from it, through various forms of economic blackmail, hardly resembles a system of justice. If the arbitrary nature of the ICC’s jurisdiction, driven by the wiles of donor states and occupiers, cannot be blamed on the court itself, it can hardly be counted in its favor.
But despite these structural challenges, the ICC now has an opportunity to begin redeeming itself. With signed documents filed in the Hague, no legal barriers – or excuses – remain to obstruct an investigation and prosecution. Israel’s massacre of over 2,100 Palestinians, including more than 500 children, maiming of thousands more, and wholesale destruction of civilian homes and neighborhoods in the Gaza Strip lie only months behind us, and its construction of illegal settlements on Palestinian land continues at full speed in the West Bank. The way for the court to restore accountability is obvious. If it shirks its responsibility, the blow to its legitimacy will be devastating.
When I met Issam Younis, executive director of the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, in his Gaza office shortly after the explosions ended last summer, I noticed his gentle, relaxed demeanor. Despite the killing of his father and mother-in-law, an employee, and untold extended family and friends over Israel’s 51-day bombardment and invasion of the Gaza Strip, he had fixed his eyes firmly on the future.
“Abbas only needs to sign the forms,” he told me when I asked him about the ICC. “We are ready to do the rest.”
For his sake, and the sake of countless other Palestinians grieving their losses and struggling to defend what remains of their land, I hope his optimism was well-placed. Supporters of the ICC should share this hope. The stakes for the system they champion could not be higher.
The ICC already faced a crisis of legitimacy due to its narrow focus on African leaders. Its 21 cases have stemmed from the nine full investigations it has launched, each in Africa. This gross disparity in the court’s attention has sparked predictable discontent among member states of the African Union. At an emergency AU summit in October 2013, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, whose charges the court would dismiss 14 months later, called it “the toy of declining imperial powers.”
Meanwhile the court rejected numerous opportunities to defend Palestinians, even as Israeli encroachments on their land and attacks on their lives escalated. On January 22, 2009, four days after Israel’s first military onslaught against the besieged Gaza Strip ended, the Palestinian leadership filed a declaration accepting ICC jurisdiction. Then-prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo refused to accept it, claiming that Palestine’s observer status at the United Nations did not qualify it as a state.
Following another round of Israel-inflicted bloodshed in the Gaza Strip, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to afford Palestine non-member observer state status on November 29, 2012. The ICC’s new prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, once again declined to open an investigation, arguing that the court could not treat Palestine’s new status retroactively for purposes of legal jurisdiction.
Last November, Bensouda blocked further investigation of killings by Israeli naval commandos of nine Turkish activists and one Turkish-American on a flotilla challenging Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip. She said that although her office’s preliminary examination found “a reasonable basis” to suspect war crimes, the deaths lacked “sufficient gravity” to merit further action by the court.
Defenders of the ICC may argue that the court faced substantial hurdles to establishing its jurisdiction in Palestine, particularly reluctance by Pres. Mahmoud Abbas to claim statehood at the UN and ratify the Rome Statute. But its critics will note that many African governments joined the court under pressure from European donor countries, often as a condition for participation in the Cotonou Agreement, a trade pact offering duty-free access to EU markets.
Through their membership, Palestinians have withstood the opposite sort of pressure. In the United States, a major backer of the Palestinian Authority, Pres. Barack Obama signed an appropriations bill mandating an end of aid to the PA if the Palestinian leaderships files or “actively supports” a case against Israel at the ICC. And the PA’s tax revenues, collected by Israel as the occupying power, remain punitively frozen for months after Palestinians ratified the Rome Statute, crippling local administration and impoverishing families.
A legal system with a purview determined by a small number of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful governments, many of which have chosen to exempt themselves from it, through various forms of economic blackmail, hardly resembles a system of justice. If the arbitrary nature of the ICC’s jurisdiction, driven by the wiles of donor states and occupiers, cannot be blamed on the court itself, it can hardly be counted in its favor.
But despite these structural challenges, the ICC now has an opportunity to begin redeeming itself. With signed documents filed in the Hague, no legal barriers – or excuses – remain to obstruct an investigation and prosecution. Israel’s massacre of over 2,100 Palestinians, including more than 500 children, maiming of thousands more, and wholesale destruction of civilian homes and neighborhoods in the Gaza Strip lie only months behind us, and its construction of illegal settlements on Palestinian land continues at full speed in the West Bank. The way for the court to restore accountability is obvious. If it shirks its responsibility, the blow to its legitimacy will be devastating.
When I met Issam Younis, executive director of the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, in his Gaza office shortly after the explosions ended last summer, I noticed his gentle, relaxed demeanor. Despite the killing of his father and mother-in-law, an employee, and untold extended family and friends over Israel’s 51-day bombardment and invasion of the Gaza Strip, he had fixed his eyes firmly on the future.
“Abbas only needs to sign the forms,” he told me when I asked him about the ICC. “We are ready to do the rest.”
For his sake, and the sake of countless other Palestinians grieving their losses and struggling to defend what remains of their land, I hope his optimism was well-placed. Supporters of the ICC should share this hope. The stakes for the system they champion could not be higher.
Israeli destruction in Beit Hanoun during the summer 2014 attack on Gaza
Israel's military command perhaps pushes for escalation in order to increase the army's budget, claims a military budget officer in an anonymous Facebook posting. “Wars, operations, exceptional events, they were our way to close gaps in the budget and even build up a reserve for the coming years...Facts are traitors which incite against the army and the state”.
Posting anonymously on Facebook, the officer claims he was compelled to write after reading an interview with a senior military official about Israel's NIS 70 billion defence budget.
“This interview is full of nauseating smugness of the officer, who is trying to again peddle the same lies and threats that if the army is not given more and more billions, he will be forced, no choice, to kill soldiers. That's how it is, if you don't pay, you will bury (the dead).
Indirectly, of course, because if there is no money we will have to again send soldiers in tin cans into Gaza, but the subtext is clear.
Yet amongst all the usual lies, he notes that the budget requested by the army for Operation Protective Edge also serves the ongoing budget of the army...”
The officer adds that “As a budget officer, wars, operations, exceptional events, they were our way to close gaps in the budget and even build up a reserve for the coming years.
In the (Gaza) disengagement, for example, the army succeeded in blackmailing so much money from the state that already in July we managed to close our contracts going forward and we sought where to shove the remaining money. All sorts of projects that weren't approved in the past, building auditoriums, gyms, offices, everything that required money and a lot of it.
It's difficult for me to explain the excitement that could be felt in the hallways of the budget department every time that such an event began. A few qassam rockets made everyone put on combat uniforms and pull from the attic the presentations and files which show, with a disporportionate exaggeration, how much money we've already spent on the operation, that we need it to be returned quickly or the army would collapse.
For every ten soldiers placed to guard a post, we demanded a budget for their uniforms, the food, the ammunitions they are liable to use, heavy combat equipment, depreciation for tanks that would maybe come out of the storerooms, pension for those soldiers for that day and everything possible to put in the presentation with a number beside it. True, the army is supposed to fund the daily existence of these soldiers from its budget, because if there was no operation they would be eating in any event, but facts are traitors which incite against the army and the state.
Occasionally I would feel that the senior command would get so excited from the mountains of money expected to arrive, I had the feeling, God forbid this is just a feeling, of course, that perhaps they pushed for escalation. Only a feeling...”
Speaking to the Haaretz newspaper, the Israeli army spokesperson responded that: “This is an individual statement that does not reflect the numerous approval and supervision processes that exist for the defense budget. All of the funds transferred to the army pass through stringent approval procedures in the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and the cabinet, and implementation is supervised by the comptroller general division in the finance ministry.”
Israel's military command perhaps pushes for escalation in order to increase the army's budget, claims a military budget officer in an anonymous Facebook posting. “Wars, operations, exceptional events, they were our way to close gaps in the budget and even build up a reserve for the coming years...Facts are traitors which incite against the army and the state”.
Posting anonymously on Facebook, the officer claims he was compelled to write after reading an interview with a senior military official about Israel's NIS 70 billion defence budget.
“This interview is full of nauseating smugness of the officer, who is trying to again peddle the same lies and threats that if the army is not given more and more billions, he will be forced, no choice, to kill soldiers. That's how it is, if you don't pay, you will bury (the dead).
Indirectly, of course, because if there is no money we will have to again send soldiers in tin cans into Gaza, but the subtext is clear.
Yet amongst all the usual lies, he notes that the budget requested by the army for Operation Protective Edge also serves the ongoing budget of the army...”
The officer adds that “As a budget officer, wars, operations, exceptional events, they were our way to close gaps in the budget and even build up a reserve for the coming years.
In the (Gaza) disengagement, for example, the army succeeded in blackmailing so much money from the state that already in July we managed to close our contracts going forward and we sought where to shove the remaining money. All sorts of projects that weren't approved in the past, building auditoriums, gyms, offices, everything that required money and a lot of it.
It's difficult for me to explain the excitement that could be felt in the hallways of the budget department every time that such an event began. A few qassam rockets made everyone put on combat uniforms and pull from the attic the presentations and files which show, with a disporportionate exaggeration, how much money we've already spent on the operation, that we need it to be returned quickly or the army would collapse.
For every ten soldiers placed to guard a post, we demanded a budget for their uniforms, the food, the ammunitions they are liable to use, heavy combat equipment, depreciation for tanks that would maybe come out of the storerooms, pension for those soldiers for that day and everything possible to put in the presentation with a number beside it. True, the army is supposed to fund the daily existence of these soldiers from its budget, because if there was no operation they would be eating in any event, but facts are traitors which incite against the army and the state.
Occasionally I would feel that the senior command would get so excited from the mountains of money expected to arrive, I had the feeling, God forbid this is just a feeling, of course, that perhaps they pushed for escalation. Only a feeling...”
Speaking to the Haaretz newspaper, the Israeli army spokesperson responded that: “This is an individual statement that does not reflect the numerous approval and supervision processes that exist for the defense budget. All of the funds transferred to the army pass through stringent approval procedures in the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and the cabinet, and implementation is supervised by the comptroller general division in the finance ministry.”
Breaking the Silence, an organization of veteran Israeli soldiers, harshly slammed the Israeli army for its operational policy during last summer’s aggression on Gaza, saying it led to “immense and unprecedented harm to the civilian population and infrastructures in the Gaza Strip,” Monday reported the Israeli daily Haaretz.
According to WAFA, the organization’s report, which contained testimonies of 60 Israeli soldiers and officers who fought in Gaza last summer, said the testimonies “are indicative of a general principle that governed the entire military operation: minimum risk to the Israeli forces, even if it meant civilian casualties.”
The group said that the army adopted a principle that “anyone found in an IDF area, which the IDF had occupied, was not a civilian. That was the assumption,” one of the soldiers told Breaking the Silence.
An infantry soldier said also any home which Israeli forces entered and used would be destroyed afterward by large D9 bulldozers. “At no point until the end of the operation … did anyone tell us what the operational usefulness was in exposing the houses,” he was quoted by Haaretz.
“During a conversation, the unit commanders explained that it wasn’t an act of revenge. At a certain point we realized this was a trend. You leave a house and there’s no longer a house. The D9 comes and exposes it.”
Another soldier said, “There was one senior commander who really loved the D9 and was really in favor of flattening; he worked a lot with them. Let’s just say that anytime he was in a certain place, all the infrastructures around the building were totally destroyed – nearly every house had a shell in it.”
Another infantry soldier also recalled an incident in which a force identified two suspicious figures walking in an orchard, only a few hundred meters away. The lookouts couldn’t immediately identify them, so a drone was sent up to take a look. It was two women walking through the orchard, talking on cell phones. “The aircraft took aim at these women and killed them,” he said.
According to the soldier, reports Haaretz, the fact that the women were carrying only cell phones was reported to the battalion commander. “Despite this, in the reports written afterward, the women were classified as terrorists – lookouts who were operating in the area.” “[The tank commander] left and we moved on. They were counted as terrorists. They were shot, so it’s clear they were terrorists,” he said.
Haaretz revealed other reports of shooting at civilians. A woman who was clearly unstable and posed no threat was reportedly ordered by the battalion commander to walk westward, toward an area where tanks were stationed. When the woman approached the tank force, she was machine-gunned to death.
Another soldier who fought in northern Gaza spoke of an old man being shot when he approached a force one afternoon. Previously, the forces had been briefed to look out for an older man who might be carrying grenades. “The guy who was in the [guard] position – I don’t know what came over him; he saw a civilian, shot him, and didn’t hit him so well. The civilian was lying there writhing in pain,” the soldier said.
Meanwhile, an Armored Corps soldier said that after the death of a fellow platoon member, the platoon commander announced they would fire a volley of shells in his memory. “Fire like they do at funerals, but with shells and at houses. It wasn’t [firing] in the air. You just chose [where to fire]. The tank commander said, ‘Choose the house that’s furthest away, it will hurt them the most.’ It was a type of revenge,” he said.
Another Armored Corps soldier said that after three weeks of fighting, a competition developed between the members of his unit – who could succeed in hitting moving vehicles on a road that carried cars, trucks and even ambulances.
“So I found a vehicle, a taxi, and I tried to shell it but missed,” he recalled. “Two more vehicles came, and I tried another shell or two, but couldn’t do it. Then the commander came and said, ‘Yallah [which means come on], stop it, you’re using up all the shells. Cut it out.’ So we moved to the heavy machine gun,” he added.
He said he understood he was firing at civilians. Asked about it, he said, “I think, deep inside, it bothered me a little. But after three weeks in Gaza, when you’re firing at everything that moves, and even things that don’t move, at a psychotic pace, you don’t really … good and bad get a little mixed up and your morality starts to get lost and you lose your compass. And it becomes like a computer game. Really, really cool and real.”
See also: Special UN Report: 2014 Israeli Assault on Gaza Hit 7 UNRWA Schools
DCI-Palestine: Israel Willfully Targeted & Murdered Gaza Children
AP Investigation: 89% of "Protective Edge" Victims Were Civilians
VIDEO: Gaza City's Devastated Al-Shuja'eyya Suburb
According to WAFA, the organization’s report, which contained testimonies of 60 Israeli soldiers and officers who fought in Gaza last summer, said the testimonies “are indicative of a general principle that governed the entire military operation: minimum risk to the Israeli forces, even if it meant civilian casualties.”
The group said that the army adopted a principle that “anyone found in an IDF area, which the IDF had occupied, was not a civilian. That was the assumption,” one of the soldiers told Breaking the Silence.
An infantry soldier said also any home which Israeli forces entered and used would be destroyed afterward by large D9 bulldozers. “At no point until the end of the operation … did anyone tell us what the operational usefulness was in exposing the houses,” he was quoted by Haaretz.
“During a conversation, the unit commanders explained that it wasn’t an act of revenge. At a certain point we realized this was a trend. You leave a house and there’s no longer a house. The D9 comes and exposes it.”
Another soldier said, “There was one senior commander who really loved the D9 and was really in favor of flattening; he worked a lot with them. Let’s just say that anytime he was in a certain place, all the infrastructures around the building were totally destroyed – nearly every house had a shell in it.”
Another infantry soldier also recalled an incident in which a force identified two suspicious figures walking in an orchard, only a few hundred meters away. The lookouts couldn’t immediately identify them, so a drone was sent up to take a look. It was two women walking through the orchard, talking on cell phones. “The aircraft took aim at these women and killed them,” he said.
According to the soldier, reports Haaretz, the fact that the women were carrying only cell phones was reported to the battalion commander. “Despite this, in the reports written afterward, the women were classified as terrorists – lookouts who were operating in the area.” “[The tank commander] left and we moved on. They were counted as terrorists. They were shot, so it’s clear they were terrorists,” he said.
Haaretz revealed other reports of shooting at civilians. A woman who was clearly unstable and posed no threat was reportedly ordered by the battalion commander to walk westward, toward an area where tanks were stationed. When the woman approached the tank force, she was machine-gunned to death.
Another soldier who fought in northern Gaza spoke of an old man being shot when he approached a force one afternoon. Previously, the forces had been briefed to look out for an older man who might be carrying grenades. “The guy who was in the [guard] position – I don’t know what came over him; he saw a civilian, shot him, and didn’t hit him so well. The civilian was lying there writhing in pain,” the soldier said.
Meanwhile, an Armored Corps soldier said that after the death of a fellow platoon member, the platoon commander announced they would fire a volley of shells in his memory. “Fire like they do at funerals, but with shells and at houses. It wasn’t [firing] in the air. You just chose [where to fire]. The tank commander said, ‘Choose the house that’s furthest away, it will hurt them the most.’ It was a type of revenge,” he said.
Another Armored Corps soldier said that after three weeks of fighting, a competition developed between the members of his unit – who could succeed in hitting moving vehicles on a road that carried cars, trucks and even ambulances.
“So I found a vehicle, a taxi, and I tried to shell it but missed,” he recalled. “Two more vehicles came, and I tried another shell or two, but couldn’t do it. Then the commander came and said, ‘Yallah [which means come on], stop it, you’re using up all the shells. Cut it out.’ So we moved to the heavy machine gun,” he added.
He said he understood he was firing at civilians. Asked about it, he said, “I think, deep inside, it bothered me a little. But after three weeks in Gaza, when you’re firing at everything that moves, and even things that don’t move, at a psychotic pace, you don’t really … good and bad get a little mixed up and your morality starts to get lost and you lose your compass. And it becomes like a computer game. Really, really cool and real.”
See also: Special UN Report: 2014 Israeli Assault on Gaza Hit 7 UNRWA Schools
DCI-Palestine: Israel Willfully Targeted & Murdered Gaza Children
AP Investigation: 89% of "Protective Edge" Victims Were Civilians
VIDEO: Gaza City's Devastated Al-Shuja'eyya Suburb
3 may 2015
Hamas senior official along with a Palestinian media organization demanded on Sunday prosecuting Israel for killing, injuring and arresting Palestinian pressmen.
Member of Hamas political bureau Izzat al-Risheq called for prosecuting Israel for its violations of the rights of the Palestinian pressmen. He opined that the media is part of Palestine liberation project.
Risheq referred to the importance of media in exposing the Israeli crimes and its impact on the international public opinion. In a statement posted on his Facebook page on Sunday, Risheq hailed, on the World Press Freedom Day, the Palestinian journalists and workers in the field of media in Palestine.
Risheq called for prosecuting Israel for killing Palestinian journalists. “We recall our martyrs who were assassinated by Israel while doing their duties bravely and honestly while their killers are still free,” he said.
In the same context, the Union of Palestinian Radio and Television demanded prosecuting Israel at the international level for killing 17 pressmen in its military aggression on Gaza in last summer and for arresting 28 others since the beginning of the year.
The Union said, in a report on Sunday, that the Palestinian journalists are deprived of their rights of freedom of media coverage in accordance with the international law and international human rights charters.
According to the report, 6 Palestinian journalists are still detained in Israeli jails bringing the number of the arrested workers in the field of media to 20. Meanwhile, 23 other pressmen were injured in the past four months in covering field stories.
The report noted that 13 pressmen and media activists were arrested in the Palestinian Authority jails in the West Bank and Gaza since the beginning of 2015. Of those, 11 were summoned for investigation and some of them were exposed to repeated arrests, it added.
The Union called for a human rights campaign for releasing the 20 journalists detained in Israeli jails and to intervene for halting the policy of arresting Palestinian pressmen on work backgrounds.
It also called for respecting the freedom of speech guaranteed by the Palestinian law.
The Union urged all Palestinian journalists in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to vote for electing a united press syndicate to represent all of them on professional, legal and transparent bases.
Member of Hamas political bureau Izzat al-Risheq called for prosecuting Israel for its violations of the rights of the Palestinian pressmen. He opined that the media is part of Palestine liberation project.
Risheq referred to the importance of media in exposing the Israeli crimes and its impact on the international public opinion. In a statement posted on his Facebook page on Sunday, Risheq hailed, on the World Press Freedom Day, the Palestinian journalists and workers in the field of media in Palestine.
Risheq called for prosecuting Israel for killing Palestinian journalists. “We recall our martyrs who were assassinated by Israel while doing their duties bravely and honestly while their killers are still free,” he said.
In the same context, the Union of Palestinian Radio and Television demanded prosecuting Israel at the international level for killing 17 pressmen in its military aggression on Gaza in last summer and for arresting 28 others since the beginning of the year.
The Union said, in a report on Sunday, that the Palestinian journalists are deprived of their rights of freedom of media coverage in accordance with the international law and international human rights charters.
According to the report, 6 Palestinian journalists are still detained in Israeli jails bringing the number of the arrested workers in the field of media to 20. Meanwhile, 23 other pressmen were injured in the past four months in covering field stories.
The report noted that 13 pressmen and media activists were arrested in the Palestinian Authority jails in the West Bank and Gaza since the beginning of 2015. Of those, 11 were summoned for investigation and some of them were exposed to repeated arrests, it added.
The Union called for a human rights campaign for releasing the 20 journalists detained in Israeli jails and to intervene for halting the policy of arresting Palestinian pressmen on work backgrounds.
It also called for respecting the freedom of speech guaranteed by the Palestinian law.
The Union urged all Palestinian journalists in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to vote for electing a united press syndicate to represent all of them on professional, legal and transparent bases.
