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The order to bomb the house has been explained as the brigade commander's legitimate interpretation of drone photos shown in the war room.
A Military Police investigation into an air strike that killed 21 Palestinian civilians during Operation Cast Lead, according to a recent Haaretz report, indicates senior air force officers had approved the attack. The report, published on Friday by Amos Harel and Anshel Pfeffer ("IDF probes top officers on Gaza war strike that killed 21 family members" ), alleges senior officers authorized the bombing despite being warned by more junior officers that civilians were likely located at or nearby the target site. One officer involved in approving the attack is then-Givati Brigade commander Col. Ilan Malka. To date it has not yet been determined whether he will stand trial as an officer involved in the affair. |
Ilan Malka
The incident took place on January 5, 2009, in the Zeitun neighborhood of Gaza City. During Givati Brigade activity in Zeitun, a house there - home to the Al-Samouni family - was identified as harboring armed Palestinians. The Israel Air Force hit the house twice with missiles, killing 21 civilians, including women and children, and wounding 19 others.
While some Givati soldiers agreed to testify to Breaking the Silence (an organization of veteran combatants who served during the second intifada and have taken it upon themselves to expose the Israeli public to everyday life in the occupied territories ) about their part in Operation Cast Lead, notably absent are the soldiers who manned the position nearest the house that was bombed on Malka's orders.
On the morning of January 4, the commanders of this force ordered the dozens of members of the extended Samouni family to leave the three-story house (the home of Talal Samouni ), which they then turned into their outpost. The soldiers told them to gather in the one-story home of Wail Samouni, on the other side of the road and about 30 meters southeast. The Samounis took the fact that the soldiers themselves concentrated the family in one building, and saw that there were infants, children, women, elderly people and unarmed men, as insurance that they would not be harmed.
Despite the intense firing heard all around them that entire evening, the family's fears were mitigated by the proximity of the soldiers who had assembled them into the one home. Several of the Samouni men even left the house on Monday morning (January 5 ) to collect wood for a fire, hoping to bake pita and heat up tea. They also called out to a relative who had remained in his home, a few meters east of them, and suggested he join them because their house was safe.
Shortly before that, one of the women of the house ventured outside with a child to draw water from a nearby well, as the water tanks on the roof had been riddled by the soldiers' bullets a day earlier. The woman and the child were within view of the soldiers, a fact which the Samounis reported to Haaretz, in Gaza, over a year and a half ago. Their testimony received extensive coverage in Haaretz, in world media outlets, and in reports filed by Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations.
Straight from the war room
A small wooden structure stood next to the house, and several of the men apparently began climbing onto it to take apart the boards. This activity was seen in drone photographs shown on the screen in the war room headquarters, which according to testimony obtained by Breaking the Silence is of poorer quality than the screen before the person operating the aircraft.
In the war room the poles the men were holding were taken to be RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades ) and the people carrying them were marked as a squad of terrorists who should be shot immediately. First the group of men outside the house was shelled. They ran into the home, which was then shelled twice. The structure was not destroyed, but because it was so crowded inside, dozens were killed and wounded.
One soldier who had testified to Breaking the Silence told Haaretz about two months ago that soldiers at another outpost, east of the Samouni compound, received information from the war room on the two-way radio that an RPG squad was walking around in the area.
On the morning of Monday, January 5, a group of stunned Palestinian civilians, including a woman and her baby daughter whose fingers had been lopped off, arrived at that soldier's outpost. The soldiers managed to understand that the woman's husband had just been killed. The woman's husband, the soldier confidently told Haaretz, had been killed by a Palestinian RPG that was aimed at the other soldiers' outpost but by mistake had hit the adjacent Samouni home.
Most of the Givati soldiers who gave testimony to Breaking the Silence didn't even know 21 civilians had been killed in a shelling carried out under war-room orders, based on drone photographs. They didn't know in real time, nor did they know a year and a half later, when they spoke to Haaretz. They hadn't heard of the "Samouni" family, despite the extensive media coverage as well as the space devoted to this family's history in the Goldstone report.
Unknown details
On January 4, 2009, the Sunday after the ground incursion had begun, a Givati force set up outposts and bases in at least six houses in the Samouni compound at the southeast end of Zeitun - as revealed upon matching the testimony of local Palestinians with that of the soldiers. Immediately after the ground incursion, IDF soldiers had already killed five Palestinian civilians, most of them from the Samouni family, in separate incidents that took place late at night and in the morning. One child who was seriously wounded when forces broke into his home, bled there to death until the next day - 24 hours after his father was killed at short range.
These details were also unknown to the soldiers that Haaretz found with the help of Breaking the Silence. They agreed to the organization's request to testify because they were horrified by two other incidents they witnessed, when their comrades killed civilians at close range. The soldiers were upset by the destructive actions of the IDF, the trigger-happy atmosphere and the virtual reality, as they described it, created by IDF spokesmen inside Israel, to the effect that there was serious fighting in the Gaza Strip. The soldiers soon understood that they were not actually confronting the dangerous Hamas resistance for which they had been prepared on the eve of the attack.
Until now the order to bomb a house full of civilians has been explained and understood as an ostensibly legitimate interpretation on the part of the brigade commander of drone photographs displayed on the screen in the war room. According to the findings of human rights organizations and Haaretz investigations, during the course of Cast Lead many other civilians were killed and wounded by aerial strikes, in a similar process: based on how drone photos on war-room screens were interpreted.
The many incidents described in the human rights organizations' reports indicate that the drone photographs are not as precise or clear as they are said to be, or that the technology considered "objective" also depends on commanders' interpretation: Children playing on the roof are liable to be regarded as "scouts," people trying to speak to their relatives over the phone are liable to be "signal operators for a terrorist brigade," and families that went to the garden to feed the goats, squads of Qassam launchers.
In the case of the Samounis, the possibility of cross-referencing sophisticated technological information with human information from the field was available 24 hours before the "RPG squad" ostensibly appeared on the war room screens.
No ambulances
The Givati Brigade commander, fearing Hamas attempts to kidnap IDF soldiers, insisted that not a single ambulance enter the sector under his control. That was also learned from soldiers who spoke to Breaking the Silence. Testimony from the Zeitun area, which was reported by Haaretz in real time based on conversations with neighborhood residents, told of at least two children and two adults who bled to death after being shot by Givati soldiers, because the Red Cross and the Red Crescent were unable to coordinate with the IDF the approach of ambulances to the area.
According to the testimony of the family of Hussein Ayedi, who lived in eastern Zeitun, only a week after he was injured and after daily coordination efforts by Physicians for Human Rights, were they allowed to leave on foot, under various conditions, and to meet up with ambulances at a distance of over three kilometers.
According to one soldier who spoke with Breaking the Silence, brigade commander Malka insisted that if there were wounded, they should be taken on foot. But according to many reports from the field, sometimes even convoys of civilians were not allowed to progress on foot and the soldiers fired at them.
http://bit.ly/9XnaxV
The incident took place on January 5, 2009, in the Zeitun neighborhood of Gaza City. During Givati Brigade activity in Zeitun, a house there - home to the Al-Samouni family - was identified as harboring armed Palestinians. The Israel Air Force hit the house twice with missiles, killing 21 civilians, including women and children, and wounding 19 others.
While some Givati soldiers agreed to testify to Breaking the Silence (an organization of veteran combatants who served during the second intifada and have taken it upon themselves to expose the Israeli public to everyday life in the occupied territories ) about their part in Operation Cast Lead, notably absent are the soldiers who manned the position nearest the house that was bombed on Malka's orders.
On the morning of January 4, the commanders of this force ordered the dozens of members of the extended Samouni family to leave the three-story house (the home of Talal Samouni ), which they then turned into their outpost. The soldiers told them to gather in the one-story home of Wail Samouni, on the other side of the road and about 30 meters southeast. The Samounis took the fact that the soldiers themselves concentrated the family in one building, and saw that there were infants, children, women, elderly people and unarmed men, as insurance that they would not be harmed.
Despite the intense firing heard all around them that entire evening, the family's fears were mitigated by the proximity of the soldiers who had assembled them into the one home. Several of the Samouni men even left the house on Monday morning (January 5 ) to collect wood for a fire, hoping to bake pita and heat up tea. They also called out to a relative who had remained in his home, a few meters east of them, and suggested he join them because their house was safe.
Shortly before that, one of the women of the house ventured outside with a child to draw water from a nearby well, as the water tanks on the roof had been riddled by the soldiers' bullets a day earlier. The woman and the child were within view of the soldiers, a fact which the Samounis reported to Haaretz, in Gaza, over a year and a half ago. Their testimony received extensive coverage in Haaretz, in world media outlets, and in reports filed by Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations.
Straight from the war room
A small wooden structure stood next to the house, and several of the men apparently began climbing onto it to take apart the boards. This activity was seen in drone photographs shown on the screen in the war room headquarters, which according to testimony obtained by Breaking the Silence is of poorer quality than the screen before the person operating the aircraft.
In the war room the poles the men were holding were taken to be RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades ) and the people carrying them were marked as a squad of terrorists who should be shot immediately. First the group of men outside the house was shelled. They ran into the home, which was then shelled twice. The structure was not destroyed, but because it was so crowded inside, dozens were killed and wounded.
One soldier who had testified to Breaking the Silence told Haaretz about two months ago that soldiers at another outpost, east of the Samouni compound, received information from the war room on the two-way radio that an RPG squad was walking around in the area.
On the morning of Monday, January 5, a group of stunned Palestinian civilians, including a woman and her baby daughter whose fingers had been lopped off, arrived at that soldier's outpost. The soldiers managed to understand that the woman's husband had just been killed. The woman's husband, the soldier confidently told Haaretz, had been killed by a Palestinian RPG that was aimed at the other soldiers' outpost but by mistake had hit the adjacent Samouni home.
Most of the Givati soldiers who gave testimony to Breaking the Silence didn't even know 21 civilians had been killed in a shelling carried out under war-room orders, based on drone photographs. They didn't know in real time, nor did they know a year and a half later, when they spoke to Haaretz. They hadn't heard of the "Samouni" family, despite the extensive media coverage as well as the space devoted to this family's history in the Goldstone report.
Unknown details
On January 4, 2009, the Sunday after the ground incursion had begun, a Givati force set up outposts and bases in at least six houses in the Samouni compound at the southeast end of Zeitun - as revealed upon matching the testimony of local Palestinians with that of the soldiers. Immediately after the ground incursion, IDF soldiers had already killed five Palestinian civilians, most of them from the Samouni family, in separate incidents that took place late at night and in the morning. One child who was seriously wounded when forces broke into his home, bled there to death until the next day - 24 hours after his father was killed at short range.
These details were also unknown to the soldiers that Haaretz found with the help of Breaking the Silence. They agreed to the organization's request to testify because they were horrified by two other incidents they witnessed, when their comrades killed civilians at close range. The soldiers were upset by the destructive actions of the IDF, the trigger-happy atmosphere and the virtual reality, as they described it, created by IDF spokesmen inside Israel, to the effect that there was serious fighting in the Gaza Strip. The soldiers soon understood that they were not actually confronting the dangerous Hamas resistance for which they had been prepared on the eve of the attack.
Until now the order to bomb a house full of civilians has been explained and understood as an ostensibly legitimate interpretation on the part of the brigade commander of drone photographs displayed on the screen in the war room. According to the findings of human rights organizations and Haaretz investigations, during the course of Cast Lead many other civilians were killed and wounded by aerial strikes, in a similar process: based on how drone photos on war-room screens were interpreted.
The many incidents described in the human rights organizations' reports indicate that the drone photographs are not as precise or clear as they are said to be, or that the technology considered "objective" also depends on commanders' interpretation: Children playing on the roof are liable to be regarded as "scouts," people trying to speak to their relatives over the phone are liable to be "signal operators for a terrorist brigade," and families that went to the garden to feed the goats, squads of Qassam launchers.
In the case of the Samounis, the possibility of cross-referencing sophisticated technological information with human information from the field was available 24 hours before the "RPG squad" ostensibly appeared on the war room screens.
No ambulances
The Givati Brigade commander, fearing Hamas attempts to kidnap IDF soldiers, insisted that not a single ambulance enter the sector under his control. That was also learned from soldiers who spoke to Breaking the Silence. Testimony from the Zeitun area, which was reported by Haaretz in real time based on conversations with neighborhood residents, told of at least two children and two adults who bled to death after being shot by Givati soldiers, because the Red Cross and the Red Crescent were unable to coordinate with the IDF the approach of ambulances to the area.
According to the testimony of the family of Hussein Ayedi, who lived in eastern Zeitun, only a week after he was injured and after daily coordination efforts by Physicians for Human Rights, were they allowed to leave on foot, under various conditions, and to meet up with ambulances at a distance of over three kilometers.
According to one soldier who spoke with Breaking the Silence, brigade commander Malka insisted that if there were wounded, they should be taken on foot. But according to many reports from the field, sometimes even convoys of civilians were not allowed to progress on foot and the soldiers fired at them.
http://bit.ly/9XnaxV
23 oct 2010
It was the Gaza assault's worst atrocity. Now the truth may finally be told
Israeli military police are investigating whether an air strike which killed 21 members of the same family sheltering in a building during the Army's Gaza offensive in 2008-9 was authorised by a senior brigade commander who had been warned of the danger to civilians.
The new turn in the enquiry has cast a fresh spotlight on what is widely thought to be the worst single incident involving civilian casualties during Operation Cast Lead, the missile attack on a building in the Zeitoun district of Gaza City, where around 100 members of the extended Samouni family were taking refuge on the morning of 5 January, 2009.
The missile attack, which also injured 19 people, came early in the ground offensive. According to many Palestinian witnesses, it came after troops in the Givati brigade ordered dozens of family members, including women and children, to move to the building the previous day.
It also coincides with evidence that the attack followed photographs from an aerial drone of men collecting firewood outside the building, including boards from a small structure next to it, which was interpreted by Givati brigade commanders as indicating they were carrying a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. While the first missile thought to have been fired from a drone was aimed at the group of men, injuring a few, at least two more landed on the building itself after they had hurried back inside.
Interviews with soldiers who were in the area at the time, carried out by Amira Hass of the Israeli daily Haaretz and the Israeli veterans' and human rights group Breaking The Silence, have helped to cast fresh light on just what happened on the morning in question.
Part of the military police investigation is now expected to focus on whether senior officers, including the Brigade Commander, Col. Ilan Malka, were aware of the civilian presence at the location or in the immediate area when he authorised the strike.
The military did not comment yesterday on specific Israeli media reports that airforce officers had already testified to the Samouni investigation that Col Malka had been warned that there could be civilians in the area. Col Malka has reportedly denied that he had any warning of a civilian presence.
The investigation may throw up renewed questions about whether rules of engagement in force during the Operation were too permissive.
According to the Israeli human rights agency B'tselem, 1390 Palestinians were killed during the operation, of whom 759 "did not take part in hostilities". The inquiry may also call into question whether the use of surveillance technology, including imaging from the air, is sufficiently clear to justify such attacks, particularly when not augmented by reliable human intelligence.
The existence of the investigation has already been seen as a potential, if partial, vindication of the UN enquiry under South African judge Richard Goldstone, which severely criticised the military's conduct in the Samouni case, as in many others.
Israel refused to cooperate with the enquiry and has severely criticised it since the judge's report.
The military's Judge Advocate General, Maj. Gen. Avichai Mendelblit ordered almost 50 investigations arising from the operation, though so far only three soldiers have been convicted, one for stealing and using a Palestinian's credit card and two for forcing an 11-year-old boy to open bags which could have contained explosives. Another soldier has been indicted for the fatal shooting of a person in the Gaza village of Juhr Al Dik.
In a report on five initial investigations he ordered after Operation Cast Lead, the military's Chief of Staff, Gabi Ashkenazy, said: "The IDF operated in accordance with moral values and international laws of war... and made an enormous effort to focus its fire only against the terrorists, whilst doing the utmost to avoid harming uninvolved civilians." Ashkenazy's comments came before the Goldstone report appeared.
One of the five initial investigations, under Israel Defence Forces Col. Tamir Yadi, specifically covered "claims regarding incidents in which many uninvolved civilians were harmed" and reportedly did not conclude that there had been anything unusual about the Samouni strike.
This was despite graphic and largely consistent accounts by numerous Palestinian witnesses to human rights organisations, Israeli and international media, including The Independent, of the strike on the building. These said that, with those in the building cold, hungry and thirsty, a few men had left the building on the freezing early morning of 5 January in order to find wood to make a fire to make tea and to bake bread, but also to urge another relative nearby to join them in what they thought was a safe refuge. They are said to have regarded the nearby presence of soldiers as a protection.
The IDF declined to confirm a report that Yoav Galant, the outgoing head of Southern Command and the new Chief of Staff Designate, had opposed the military police investigation on the Samouni case.
Breaking the Silence confirmed yesterday that soldiers who had spoken about operations in Zeitoun during the 2008-9 offensive had been convinced that a militant Palestinian RPG squad had been operating in the area, apparently on the basis of the same incorrect information that led to the air strike.
That was the information they had been given over the radio by the war room, at a time close to when the strike occurred. Indeed, when a young woman, whose husband had been killed in the attack, subsequently arrrived with her injured baby daughter and her brother-in-law at a house occupied by troops, soldiers simply assumed that they had been the victims of a misfired RPG attack which had been intended for the house they were occupying, instead of a missile attack on the Wael Samouni building, of which they were unaware.
The house was one of several taken over by troops during the Zeitoun operation. In all other respects they corroborated the detailed recollection of Maysa Samouni, who did indeed arrive at a house occupied by soldiers and whose injured daughter who had lost three fingers was given first aid by soldiers.
Ms Hass' reconstruction, amplifying previous testimony by witnesses from the Samouni family, describes how on the morning of 4 January, force commanders who are not among those to have talked about the day ordered dozens of family members to leave the three storey house of Talal Samouni which had been turned into a military position.
They were told to assemble in the one-storey house of Wael Samouni, about 30 metres to the south east.
Ms Hass, who has also interviewed dozens of Samouni witnesses, says the fact that there had been elderly people, women and children were already in the group assembled there and that they had been ordered by the soldiers to go to the building, was a guarantee no harm would come to them. In the event, women and children were among those killed.
Among the several children and young adults orphaned in the blasts was Mona Samouni, now 12, who saw both her parents die at her side.
One of the questions which the current military police investigation will presumably have to decide is how it was even if Col Malka was not specifically warned that civilians were present before the attack was authorised that he did not know: why the war room from which the Givati operation was being run was not told the previous day that unarmed civilians, including women and children, had been ordered to move to Wael Samouni's house.
Yesterday, the military would only say that the Samouni attack was "the subject of a military police investigation".
http://ind.pn/aIjO5Q
It was the Gaza assault's worst atrocity. Now the truth may finally be told
Israeli military police are investigating whether an air strike which killed 21 members of the same family sheltering in a building during the Army's Gaza offensive in 2008-9 was authorised by a senior brigade commander who had been warned of the danger to civilians.
The new turn in the enquiry has cast a fresh spotlight on what is widely thought to be the worst single incident involving civilian casualties during Operation Cast Lead, the missile attack on a building in the Zeitoun district of Gaza City, where around 100 members of the extended Samouni family were taking refuge on the morning of 5 January, 2009.
The missile attack, which also injured 19 people, came early in the ground offensive. According to many Palestinian witnesses, it came after troops in the Givati brigade ordered dozens of family members, including women and children, to move to the building the previous day.
It also coincides with evidence that the attack followed photographs from an aerial drone of men collecting firewood outside the building, including boards from a small structure next to it, which was interpreted by Givati brigade commanders as indicating they were carrying a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. While the first missile thought to have been fired from a drone was aimed at the group of men, injuring a few, at least two more landed on the building itself after they had hurried back inside.
Interviews with soldiers who were in the area at the time, carried out by Amira Hass of the Israeli daily Haaretz and the Israeli veterans' and human rights group Breaking The Silence, have helped to cast fresh light on just what happened on the morning in question.
Part of the military police investigation is now expected to focus on whether senior officers, including the Brigade Commander, Col. Ilan Malka, were aware of the civilian presence at the location or in the immediate area when he authorised the strike.
The military did not comment yesterday on specific Israeli media reports that airforce officers had already testified to the Samouni investigation that Col Malka had been warned that there could be civilians in the area. Col Malka has reportedly denied that he had any warning of a civilian presence.
The investigation may throw up renewed questions about whether rules of engagement in force during the Operation were too permissive.
According to the Israeli human rights agency B'tselem, 1390 Palestinians were killed during the operation, of whom 759 "did not take part in hostilities". The inquiry may also call into question whether the use of surveillance technology, including imaging from the air, is sufficiently clear to justify such attacks, particularly when not augmented by reliable human intelligence.
The existence of the investigation has already been seen as a potential, if partial, vindication of the UN enquiry under South African judge Richard Goldstone, which severely criticised the military's conduct in the Samouni case, as in many others.
Israel refused to cooperate with the enquiry and has severely criticised it since the judge's report.
The military's Judge Advocate General, Maj. Gen. Avichai Mendelblit ordered almost 50 investigations arising from the operation, though so far only three soldiers have been convicted, one for stealing and using a Palestinian's credit card and two for forcing an 11-year-old boy to open bags which could have contained explosives. Another soldier has been indicted for the fatal shooting of a person in the Gaza village of Juhr Al Dik.
In a report on five initial investigations he ordered after Operation Cast Lead, the military's Chief of Staff, Gabi Ashkenazy, said: "The IDF operated in accordance with moral values and international laws of war... and made an enormous effort to focus its fire only against the terrorists, whilst doing the utmost to avoid harming uninvolved civilians." Ashkenazy's comments came before the Goldstone report appeared.
One of the five initial investigations, under Israel Defence Forces Col. Tamir Yadi, specifically covered "claims regarding incidents in which many uninvolved civilians were harmed" and reportedly did not conclude that there had been anything unusual about the Samouni strike.
This was despite graphic and largely consistent accounts by numerous Palestinian witnesses to human rights organisations, Israeli and international media, including The Independent, of the strike on the building. These said that, with those in the building cold, hungry and thirsty, a few men had left the building on the freezing early morning of 5 January in order to find wood to make a fire to make tea and to bake bread, but also to urge another relative nearby to join them in what they thought was a safe refuge. They are said to have regarded the nearby presence of soldiers as a protection.
The IDF declined to confirm a report that Yoav Galant, the outgoing head of Southern Command and the new Chief of Staff Designate, had opposed the military police investigation on the Samouni case.
Breaking the Silence confirmed yesterday that soldiers who had spoken about operations in Zeitoun during the 2008-9 offensive had been convinced that a militant Palestinian RPG squad had been operating in the area, apparently on the basis of the same incorrect information that led to the air strike.
That was the information they had been given over the radio by the war room, at a time close to when the strike occurred. Indeed, when a young woman, whose husband had been killed in the attack, subsequently arrrived with her injured baby daughter and her brother-in-law at a house occupied by troops, soldiers simply assumed that they had been the victims of a misfired RPG attack which had been intended for the house they were occupying, instead of a missile attack on the Wael Samouni building, of which they were unaware.
The house was one of several taken over by troops during the Zeitoun operation. In all other respects they corroborated the detailed recollection of Maysa Samouni, who did indeed arrive at a house occupied by soldiers and whose injured daughter who had lost three fingers was given first aid by soldiers.
Ms Hass' reconstruction, amplifying previous testimony by witnesses from the Samouni family, describes how on the morning of 4 January, force commanders who are not among those to have talked about the day ordered dozens of family members to leave the three storey house of Talal Samouni which had been turned into a military position.
They were told to assemble in the one-storey house of Wael Samouni, about 30 metres to the south east.
Ms Hass, who has also interviewed dozens of Samouni witnesses, says the fact that there had been elderly people, women and children were already in the group assembled there and that they had been ordered by the soldiers to go to the building, was a guarantee no harm would come to them. In the event, women and children were among those killed.
Among the several children and young adults orphaned in the blasts was Mona Samouni, now 12, who saw both her parents die at her side.
One of the questions which the current military police investigation will presumably have to decide is how it was even if Col Malka was not specifically warned that civilians were present before the attack was authorised that he did not know: why the war room from which the Givati operation was being run was not told the previous day that unarmed civilians, including women and children, had been ordered to move to Wael Samouni's house.
Yesterday, the military would only say that the Samouni attack was "the subject of a military police investigation".
http://ind.pn/aIjO5Q
22 oct 2010
'IDF investigation an Israeli stunt'
'IDF investigation an Israeli stunt'
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Salah al-Samouni, who lost family members to IDF bombing in Gaza's Zaitun neighborhood says current military probe into air raid meant only to 'ease military's conscience,' not punish perpetrators.
Salah al-Samouni does not know of Colonel Ilan Malka is the officer he spoke with the day before Gaza City's Zaitun neighborhood was bombed during the Israeli offensive in Gaza. The al-Samouni family suffered the biggest number of victims during Operation Cast Lead, with 29 of its members killed and 45 injured. Malka, then Givati Brigade's commander, was questioned Thursday over his alleged approval of a deadly air raid of the neighborhood. Salah lost his parents, daughter, aunt and several cousins that day. |
"There was an officer I spoke with in Hebrew we in the family worked in Israel for many years, so we speak it well. My father and uncles, we explained to the officer that this is a family of farmers, that we have nothing to do with what's going in," he said.
According to al-Samouni, the officer seemed convince. Less than 24 hours later, Malka green-lighted the strike which took out a Zaitun building, which proved to house dozens of civilians.
The day before the bombing, al-Samouni said, 97 members of the family gathered under one roof and his father gave the IDF the names of each one, in Hebrew. "We told them that there was fire on IDF troops, but that it didn't come from this area, it came from several hundred yards away."
The day of the strike, the IDF closed off the area completely. "It was winter. We were out looking for firewood, and all of a sudden shells were fired at us from several directions. I could feel the shrapnel. We ran into the house and started praying, the prayer Muslims say when they feel they are about to be killed. Soon after that several Apache helicopter missiles were fired on the house, as well as more shells."
Al-Samouni believes the current investigation in an "Israeli stunt": "They want to ease their conscience a little. They have no real intention of prosecuting those responsible for this massacre to the full extent of the law," he told Ynet.
"I'm not sure that the officer I spoke with is the one who gave the order to massacre my family and countless of innocent people, they change shifts, but I can recognize him. One thing is for sure this was a deliberate massacre of civilians. I told Goldstone as much. This was planned."
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3973440,00.html
Probe: IDF brass may have ignored risk of Gaza war civilian deaths
Former Givati commander probed for ordering air strike on civilians despite warnings.
Senior army officers are under investigation for authorizing an air strike in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead that killed 21 members of the same family depite possibly receiving warnings from subordinates that there could be civilians in the area.
One of those involved in authorizing the strike was then-Givati Brigade commander Col. Ilan Malka.
A security source told Haaretz that the Military Police probe into the incident turned out to be particularly complex, and added that this is "explosive and highly sensitive material," which casts a shadow on senior figures in the military. If a decision is made to bring charges against those involved, the source said, there will be deliberations on the broader question of the rules of engagement during the operation. The rules of engagement had been described by officers who participated in Cast Lead as both excessive and overly lenient.
A decision on whether or not to charge officers has not yet been made.
The incident occurred on January 5, 2009, in the neighborhood of Zeitun in Gaza City. At the time, Givati units were on a mission in the neighborhood and identified the home of the Samouni family as a location of armed Palestinian militants.
An air strike was twice called in over a short period of time. Twenty-one people were killed, among them women and children, and 19 were injured.
Israel Defense Forces ground troops began operations in Zeitun on the night between the 3rd and the 4th of January. The forces also carried out some searches on the street where the Samouni clan lives. Some 100 family members had gathered in one of the homes.
According to the testimony of the family members, the IDF forces entered the home on January 4 and ordered them to stay in the home that they had already searched.
Some family members went out occasionally to collect wood for a fire. The soldiers watching the house knew clearly that there were civilians there.
On January 5 at 7 A.M., three or four missiles struck the home and its environs. According to witnesses, the missiles were fired from the air.
In two other cases in the same area, there were reports that three other members of the clan had been killed by the IDF.
Following the operation, IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi appointed a number of investigation teams to look into unusual incidents. A team headed by Col. Tamir Yadi did not conclude that there had been anything out of the ordinary in the air strike.
Pressure from the UN following the Goldstone report led to the appointment of another team of investigators, headed by Col. Erez Katz, in November 2009.
The investigators' conclusions led Military Advocate General Maj. Gen. Avichai Mendelblit to order a Military Police investigation into the possibility that there had been a violation of the rules of engagement.
At the time the MAG explained that the delay in ordering an investigation stemmed also from the different incidents involving members of the Samouni clan.
Security sources told Haaretz that the investigation included testimonies from air force officers who had warned the Givati Brigade commander that there could be civilians in the area.
During the investigation, the Brigade commander said that he had not been aware of the warning that there may be civilians and that the choice of missiles over gravity bombs - which would have caused more damage - was proportional to the risk the troops were running when confronted by militants nearby.
The chief defense lawyer in the IDF, Col. Udi Ben-Eliezer, who is representing Malka, told Haaretz that "the brigade commander's actions were aimed at removing the immediate threat to his soldiers, in line with the data he had at the time."
At least two very senior officers, outgoing GOC Southern Command Yoav Galant, and GOC Central Command Avi Mizrahi, opposed an MP investigation. Mizrahi said that on the basis of his professional evaluation of the video of the attack Malka had behaved "reasonably. In his place I would have done the same."
http://bit.ly/bPBZq8
According to al-Samouni, the officer seemed convince. Less than 24 hours later, Malka green-lighted the strike which took out a Zaitun building, which proved to house dozens of civilians.
The day before the bombing, al-Samouni said, 97 members of the family gathered under one roof and his father gave the IDF the names of each one, in Hebrew. "We told them that there was fire on IDF troops, but that it didn't come from this area, it came from several hundred yards away."
The day of the strike, the IDF closed off the area completely. "It was winter. We were out looking for firewood, and all of a sudden shells were fired at us from several directions. I could feel the shrapnel. We ran into the house and started praying, the prayer Muslims say when they feel they are about to be killed. Soon after that several Apache helicopter missiles were fired on the house, as well as more shells."
Al-Samouni believes the current investigation in an "Israeli stunt": "They want to ease their conscience a little. They have no real intention of prosecuting those responsible for this massacre to the full extent of the law," he told Ynet.
"I'm not sure that the officer I spoke with is the one who gave the order to massacre my family and countless of innocent people, they change shifts, but I can recognize him. One thing is for sure this was a deliberate massacre of civilians. I told Goldstone as much. This was planned."
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3973440,00.html
Probe: IDF brass may have ignored risk of Gaza war civilian deaths
Former Givati commander probed for ordering air strike on civilians despite warnings.
Senior army officers are under investigation for authorizing an air strike in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead that killed 21 members of the same family depite possibly receiving warnings from subordinates that there could be civilians in the area.
One of those involved in authorizing the strike was then-Givati Brigade commander Col. Ilan Malka.
A security source told Haaretz that the Military Police probe into the incident turned out to be particularly complex, and added that this is "explosive and highly sensitive material," which casts a shadow on senior figures in the military. If a decision is made to bring charges against those involved, the source said, there will be deliberations on the broader question of the rules of engagement during the operation. The rules of engagement had been described by officers who participated in Cast Lead as both excessive and overly lenient.
A decision on whether or not to charge officers has not yet been made.
The incident occurred on January 5, 2009, in the neighborhood of Zeitun in Gaza City. At the time, Givati units were on a mission in the neighborhood and identified the home of the Samouni family as a location of armed Palestinian militants.
An air strike was twice called in over a short period of time. Twenty-one people were killed, among them women and children, and 19 were injured.
Israel Defense Forces ground troops began operations in Zeitun on the night between the 3rd and the 4th of January. The forces also carried out some searches on the street where the Samouni clan lives. Some 100 family members had gathered in one of the homes.
According to the testimony of the family members, the IDF forces entered the home on January 4 and ordered them to stay in the home that they had already searched.
Some family members went out occasionally to collect wood for a fire. The soldiers watching the house knew clearly that there were civilians there.
On January 5 at 7 A.M., three or four missiles struck the home and its environs. According to witnesses, the missiles were fired from the air.
In two other cases in the same area, there were reports that three other members of the clan had been killed by the IDF.
Following the operation, IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi appointed a number of investigation teams to look into unusual incidents. A team headed by Col. Tamir Yadi did not conclude that there had been anything out of the ordinary in the air strike.
Pressure from the UN following the Goldstone report led to the appointment of another team of investigators, headed by Col. Erez Katz, in November 2009.
The investigators' conclusions led Military Advocate General Maj. Gen. Avichai Mendelblit to order a Military Police investigation into the possibility that there had been a violation of the rules of engagement.
At the time the MAG explained that the delay in ordering an investigation stemmed also from the different incidents involving members of the Samouni clan.
Security sources told Haaretz that the investigation included testimonies from air force officers who had warned the Givati Brigade commander that there could be civilians in the area.
During the investigation, the Brigade commander said that he had not been aware of the warning that there may be civilians and that the choice of missiles over gravity bombs - which would have caused more damage - was proportional to the risk the troops were running when confronted by militants nearby.
The chief defense lawyer in the IDF, Col. Udi Ben-Eliezer, who is representing Malka, told Haaretz that "the brigade commander's actions were aimed at removing the immediate threat to his soldiers, in line with the data he had at the time."
At least two very senior officers, outgoing GOC Southern Command Yoav Galant, and GOC Central Command Avi Mizrahi, opposed an MP investigation. Mizrahi said that on the basis of his professional evaluation of the video of the attack Malka had behaved "reasonably. In his place I would have done the same."
http://bit.ly/bPBZq8
13 oct 2010
'Israeli lobby supports Israeli crimes'
Former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney says a strongly-financed lobby throughout the world has helped Israel violate international law.
"The status that Israel enjoys is the result of a very well-financed lobby that protects the interests of Israel," McKinney said in an interview with Press TV on Tuesday.
The problem of Israel knowing itself exempt from international law has not only affected the United States, but also the international community and the United Nations, she further explained.
"Look at what happened with Judge [Richard] Goldstone when he wrote a report that just told the truth about what Israel did with respect to Operation Cast Lead," she noted.
The Israeli operation on Gaza in the winter of 2008-2009 resulted in the deaths of more than 1,400 Palestinians, most of them civilians and inflicted over $1.6 billion of damage on the Gaza Strip's economy.
The UN report, also known as the 'Goldstone Report,' said Israel's crimes included deliberate targeting civilians. It also highlighted the Israeli forces' "systematically reckless" way of determining the use of white phosphorus in built-up areas, notably in the attack on the UN Relief and Works Agency compound in Gaza City as well as two Gaza-based hospitals.
McKinney also referred to Israel's attack on the humanitarian aid Flotilla, which took place as the convoy was attempting to bring aid to the besieged Gaza Strip. She emphasized that Tel Aviv, in defiance of the international condemnation of the assault, claims that its actions were legal.
McKinney's remarks came following former White House correspondent Helen Thomas' statement that no one in the United States can criticize Israel and survive.
Thomas was forced to resign in June after calling on Israel to "get out of Palestine."
McKinney reiterated that the Israeli lobby supports Tel Aviv's interests, "no matter what the political systems is."
She suggested that a "well-financed and well-organized people's lobby" be formed in order to counteract the affects of the Israeli lobby in order to safeguard peace and justice.
http://www.presstv.com/detail/146486.html
'Israeli lobby supports Israeli crimes'
Former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney says a strongly-financed lobby throughout the world has helped Israel violate international law.
"The status that Israel enjoys is the result of a very well-financed lobby that protects the interests of Israel," McKinney said in an interview with Press TV on Tuesday.
The problem of Israel knowing itself exempt from international law has not only affected the United States, but also the international community and the United Nations, she further explained.
"Look at what happened with Judge [Richard] Goldstone when he wrote a report that just told the truth about what Israel did with respect to Operation Cast Lead," she noted.
The Israeli operation on Gaza in the winter of 2008-2009 resulted in the deaths of more than 1,400 Palestinians, most of them civilians and inflicted over $1.6 billion of damage on the Gaza Strip's economy.
The UN report, also known as the 'Goldstone Report,' said Israel's crimes included deliberate targeting civilians. It also highlighted the Israeli forces' "systematically reckless" way of determining the use of white phosphorus in built-up areas, notably in the attack on the UN Relief and Works Agency compound in Gaza City as well as two Gaza-based hospitals.
McKinney also referred to Israel's attack on the humanitarian aid Flotilla, which took place as the convoy was attempting to bring aid to the besieged Gaza Strip. She emphasized that Tel Aviv, in defiance of the international condemnation of the assault, claims that its actions were legal.
McKinney's remarks came following former White House correspondent Helen Thomas' statement that no one in the United States can criticize Israel and survive.
Thomas was forced to resign in June after calling on Israel to "get out of Palestine."
McKinney reiterated that the Israeli lobby supports Tel Aviv's interests, "no matter what the political systems is."
She suggested that a "well-financed and well-organized people's lobby" be formed in order to counteract the affects of the Israeli lobby in order to safeguard peace and justice.
http://www.presstv.com/detail/146486.html
5 oct 2010
PA censured for stalling at UNHRC
An Israeli missile strike targeted the Rafah refugee camp in southern Gaza Strip on December 28, 2008.
Palestinian resistance factions in the Gaza Strip have accused the Palestinian Authority (PA) of whitewashing the Israeli war crimes at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC).
The PA, which is based in the occupied West Bank, approved of a recent vote by the 47-member body to postpone action on the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict.
The investigative committee has accused Tel Aviv of committing war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during its January 2008-December 2009 war on the Gaza Strip.
The PA said it needed more time for further investigation.
The Palestinian Authority has once again betrayed the Palestinians at the UN Human Rights Council, said Khaled Abu Helal, the leader of the Ahrar movement.
The war, codenamed Operation Cast Lead, killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, most of them civilians, and inflicted over $1.6 billion of damage on the Gaza Strip's economy.
The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas defended Gaza's residents against the Israeli onslaught attack offensives. So, it is not a surprise to us that the PA committee would condemn the Palestinian resistance, Abu Helal added.
The UN report, also known as the Goldstone Report, says the crimes include deliberate targeting of civilians. It also highlights the Israeli forces' "systematically reckless" way of determining the use of white phosphorus in built-up areas, notably in the attack on the UN Relief and Works Agency compound in the Gaza City as well as two Gaza-based hospitals.
Human rights groups say the recent conviction of two Israeli soldiers for using a Palestinian boy as a human shield during the war proves Tel Aviv committed war crimes in Gaza, Shannon added. The troops recklessly endangered the life of the nine-year-old boy by forcing him to check suspected booby traps.
This is a new indicator, shows that the Israeli occupation forces committed war crimes against the Palestinians. And this required a follow-up from the international community to get the Israeli real war criminals, the Israel leaders to specialized courts, as what happened in the ex-Yugoslavia and Rwanda, Amjad Shawa of the Palestinian NGO Network told the Press TV correspondent in Gaza in a report broadcasted on Monday.
Salah Sammouni, who lost 31 members of his family during the attacks, said, Dozens of children, woman and elderly people from my family were used by Israeli soldiers as human shields and many of them were killed. Up until now, we're still waiting for justice to be served.
http://www.presstv.com/detail/145217.html
PA censured for stalling at UNHRC
An Israeli missile strike targeted the Rafah refugee camp in southern Gaza Strip on December 28, 2008.
Palestinian resistance factions in the Gaza Strip have accused the Palestinian Authority (PA) of whitewashing the Israeli war crimes at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC).
The PA, which is based in the occupied West Bank, approved of a recent vote by the 47-member body to postpone action on the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict.
The investigative committee has accused Tel Aviv of committing war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during its January 2008-December 2009 war on the Gaza Strip.
The PA said it needed more time for further investigation.
The Palestinian Authority has once again betrayed the Palestinians at the UN Human Rights Council, said Khaled Abu Helal, the leader of the Ahrar movement.
The war, codenamed Operation Cast Lead, killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, most of them civilians, and inflicted over $1.6 billion of damage on the Gaza Strip's economy.
The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas defended Gaza's residents against the Israeli onslaught attack offensives. So, it is not a surprise to us that the PA committee would condemn the Palestinian resistance, Abu Helal added.
The UN report, also known as the Goldstone Report, says the crimes include deliberate targeting of civilians. It also highlights the Israeli forces' "systematically reckless" way of determining the use of white phosphorus in built-up areas, notably in the attack on the UN Relief and Works Agency compound in the Gaza City as well as two Gaza-based hospitals.
Human rights groups say the recent conviction of two Israeli soldiers for using a Palestinian boy as a human shield during the war proves Tel Aviv committed war crimes in Gaza, Shannon added. The troops recklessly endangered the life of the nine-year-old boy by forcing him to check suspected booby traps.
This is a new indicator, shows that the Israeli occupation forces committed war crimes against the Palestinians. And this required a follow-up from the international community to get the Israeli real war criminals, the Israel leaders to specialized courts, as what happened in the ex-Yugoslavia and Rwanda, Amjad Shawa of the Palestinian NGO Network told the Press TV correspondent in Gaza in a report broadcasted on Monday.
Salah Sammouni, who lost 31 members of his family during the attacks, said, Dozens of children, woman and elderly people from my family were used by Israeli soldiers as human shields and many of them were killed. Up until now, we're still waiting for justice to be served.
http://www.presstv.com/detail/145217.html
