'To:
Subject: Re: [JUSTWATCH] New details of Israeli war conduct emerge
Well, I was more interested in some legal analysis of the possibilities
for trials and prosecution for the alleged criminals in the IDF
connected with the operation in Gaza than the story of Jenin seven years
ago. I don't think one could compare the Gaza war to the operation in Jenin.
But since Jenin is mentioned, we can talk about that as well. I have to
admit that I am at an immediate disadvantage when it comes to questions
about Israel and Palestine because I have never been there. Therefore,
my knowledge is based only on what I have read. I have used some of the
day to refresh what I remember about Jenin and read up. What I do
remember was that there was claims of massacres where the IDF allegedly
had killed thousands of Palestinians and buried them alive under their
houses. As far as I can see, there was no massive air assault on Jenin,
and it was a regular military operation against militant terrorists.
According to the UN, there were 52 Palestinians and 23 IDF soldiers
killed these days, nothing close to any massacre. Accordning to
Wikipedia, no more than 26 and maybe as little as five civilians were
killed during Operation Defensive Shield,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jenin. Does anyone else have
other numbers?
For more about the IDF operation in Jenin, it could also be useful to
watch The Road to Jenin, a movie by Pierre Rehov,
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3079049095214906504. Here we
see Bassem Eid, the founder and director of the Palestinian Human Rights
Monitoring Group (http://www.phrmg.org/ ), a non-partisan organization dedicated
to exposing human rights violations and supporting a democratic and
pluralistic Palestine. He is warning that media can make the conflict
much harder than it is.
cheers
k
Ana Valdés wrote:
> The problem is not as easy, dear Kristian. The IDF call itself the "most
moral army in the world" and if it wants live up to their rethoric they must
be much better than any other army.
I was in Jenin in April 2002, the same day the IDF left the city after ten
days closure, where the people were not allowed to show themselves in the
streets, they didn't have any fresh water or any more food than they had in
the houses. I am speaking about a 75.000 people's city, not a village.
In every house in the middle of the town was a hole digged by the soldiers
or made with a bulldozzer or by bombing the houses with Apache helicopters.
In the houses where the army itself occupied the pans and the kitchen bowls
were used as toilets and urine and fecales were everywhere.
In the bedrooms it were graffittis in hebrew with the inscriptions :"we
don't want your rotten kids, you are the devil's pawns".
It was desecration in every shrine, in every mosque, in every house.
It was the worst I have seen in my life, http://this.is/Jenin , this is our
pictures and texts.
(The most people in Jenin were civilians, old women and kids, old men, the
young fled to the hills around or hided themselves in tunnels and cellars,
the "resistance" in Jenin were some hundred guys armed with homemade bobby
traps and personal guns. Against them the IDF, one of the world's most
powerful armies.
Ana
On Sat, Mar 21, 2009 at 9:50 AM, Kristian Kahrswrote:
In theory, this is very simple. The guilty ones have to be arrested and
prosecuted. There seems to be a lot of rotten eggs in the IDF. What does
it mean when the IDF is opening a criminal inquiry? Does anyone know
what the relaxed rules of engagement involve concretely?
k
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_ISRAEL_PALESTINIANS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2009-03-20-16-54-20
Mar 20, 4:54 PM EDT
New details of Israeli war conduct emerge
By JOSEF FEDERMAN
Associated Press Writer
JERUSALEM (AP) -- An increasingly disturbing picture of the Israeli
army's conduct in the Gaza war emerged Friday, as new witness accounts
from Israeli troops described wanton vandalism to Palestinian homes,
humiliation of civilians and loose rules of engagement that resulted in
unnecessary civilian deaths.
The revelations of soldier conduct over the past two days have set off
soul-searching and alarm in a country where the military is widely
revered. They also have echoed Palestinian allegations that Israel's
assault did not distinguish between civilians and combatants, at a time
when some international human rights groups contend Israel violated the
laws of war.
Israel launched the offensive on Dec. 27 in what it said was an effort
to end years of Palestinian rocket attacks from Gaza. The Palestinian
Center for Human Rights, which conducted a survey of casualties, says a
total of 1,417 people were killed, including 926 civilians during the
22-day offensive.
Israel has disputed the findings, saying the most of the dead were
legitimate targets, but it offered no evidence. Thirteen Israelis also
died in the fighting.
The Israeli government has insisted it did all it could to prevent
civilian casualties, but on Thursday, the army ordered a criminal
inquiry into its own soldiers' reports that some troops killed
civilians, including children, by hastily opening fire, confident that
the relaxed rules of engagement would protect them.
The inquiry was based on postwar testimony from a gathering of soldiers
involved in the offensive, published in a military institute's
newsletter and leaked to two Israeli newspapers. The Haaretz daily
published additional details Friday, and the transcript of the session
was obtained by The Associated Press.
According to one account, an Israeli sniper killed a Palestinian woman
and her two children after they misunderstood another soldier's order
and turned the wrong way. The sniper was not told the civilians had been
released from the house and, in compliance with standing orders, opened
fire when they approached him.
In another account, an elderly woman was shot dead while walking on a
road. The soldier who described the incident, identified only as "Aviv,"
said it was not clear whether the woman was a threat.
"From the description of this story, I simply felt it was murder in cold
blood," Aviv said, according to the transcript. "The order was to take
that woman out, the moment you see her."
Aviv said in one instance, his unit was sent to take over a house by
bursting in, going up floor by floor and shooting anyone they saw.
"I call this murder," he said. "From above they said it was permissible,
because anyone who remained in the sector and inside Gaza City was in
effect condemned, a terrorist, because they hadn't fled."
In the end, he said he managed to change the order so residents would be
given five minutes to leave their homes, drawing protests from other
soldiers. "Anyone who's in there is a terrorist, that's a known fact,"
he quoted another soldier as saying.
Aviv said he felt an attitude among soldiers that "inside Gaza you are
allowed to do anything you want, to break down doors of houses for no
reason other than that it's cool."
"To write 'Death to the Arabs' on the walls, to take family pictures and
spit on them, just because you can," he said.
The army said Friday it had no additional comment beyond Thursday's
announcement of the inquiry. During the fighting, the military
acknowledged loosening the rules of engagement, aiming to reduce
casualties among Israeli troops.
Another soldier, Ram, described what appeared to be a rift between
secular and religious soldiers.
"What I do remember in particular at the beginning is the feeling of an
almost religious mission," he said. He described a "huge gap" between
background material provided by the army's education corps, and
religious material distributed by the army's rabbinate.
"Their message was very clear: 'We are the Jewish people, we came to
this land by a miracle. God brought us back to this land, and now we
need to fight to expel the gentiles who are interfering with our
conquest of this holy land,'" he said.
Earlier this year, the military "severely reprimanded" an officer for
distributing a religious booklet urging soldiers to show no mercy to
their enemies. The army said the booklet was based on the writings of an
ultranationalist rabbi and that the chief military rabbi had not
approved it.
The published accounts revealed debate and soul-searching among the
soldiers. Discussing the death of the old woman, one soldier, Zvi, said
the shooting could be understood in the context of the battle zone.
"Logic says she should be there," he said. "It's known that they have
lookouts and that sort of thing."
And Yossi said his unit was forced to clean up a home it had occupied on
the same day that a Palestinian rocket wounded a mother and baby in an
Israeli city. He said soldiers were unhappy, but complied.
"In the end I was convinced, and realized it was the right thing to do,"
he said.
Danny Zamir, the head of the institute, called the discussion
"instructive," but also "dismaying and depressing."
"You are describing an army with very low norms of value," he said.
The heavy Palestinian civilian casualties and widespread destruction
during the three-week war provoked international outcry against Israel, which halted its fire on Jan. 18.'
Subject: Re: [JUSTWATCH] New details of Israeli war conduct emerge
Well, I was more interested in some legal analysis of the possibilities
for trials and prosecution for the alleged criminals in the IDF
connected with the operation in Gaza than the story of Jenin seven years
ago. I don't think one could compare the Gaza war to the operation in Jenin.
But since Jenin is mentioned, we can talk about that as well. I have to
admit that I am at an immediate disadvantage when it comes to questions
about Israel and Palestine because I have never been there. Therefore,
my knowledge is based only on what I have read. I have used some of the
day to refresh what I remember about Jenin and read up. What I do
remember was that there was claims of massacres where the IDF allegedly
had killed thousands of Palestinians and buried them alive under their
houses. As far as I can see, there was no massive air assault on Jenin,
and it was a regular military operation against militant terrorists.
According to the UN, there were 52 Palestinians and 23 IDF soldiers
killed these days, nothing close to any massacre. Accordning to
Wikipedia, no more than 26 and maybe as little as five civilians were
killed during Operation Defensive Shield,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jenin. Does anyone else have
other numbers?
For more about the IDF operation in Jenin, it could also be useful to
watch The Road to Jenin, a movie by Pierre Rehov,
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3079049095214906504. Here we
see Bassem Eid, the founder and director of the Palestinian Human Rights
Monitoring Group (http://www.phrmg.org/ ), a non-partisan organization dedicated
to exposing human rights violations and supporting a democratic and
pluralistic Palestine. He is warning that media can make the conflict
much harder than it is.
cheers
k
Ana Valdés wrote:
> The problem is not as easy, dear Kristian. The IDF call itself the "most
moral army in the world" and if it wants live up to their rethoric they must
be much better than any other army.
I was in Jenin in April 2002, the same day the IDF left the city after ten
days closure, where the people were not allowed to show themselves in the
streets, they didn't have any fresh water or any more food than they had in
the houses. I am speaking about a 75.000 people's city, not a village.
In every house in the middle of the town was a hole digged by the soldiers
or made with a bulldozzer or by bombing the houses with Apache helicopters.
In the houses where the army itself occupied the pans and the kitchen bowls
were used as toilets and urine and fecales were everywhere.
In the bedrooms it were graffittis in hebrew with the inscriptions :"we
don't want your rotten kids, you are the devil's pawns".
It was desecration in every shrine, in every mosque, in every house.
It was the worst I have seen in my life, http://this.is/Jenin , this is our
pictures and texts.
(The most people in Jenin were civilians, old women and kids, old men, the
young fled to the hills around or hided themselves in tunnels and cellars,
the "resistance" in Jenin were some hundred guys armed with homemade bobby
traps and personal guns. Against them the IDF, one of the world's most
powerful armies.
Ana
On Sat, Mar 21, 2009 at 9:50 AM, Kristian Kahrs
In theory, this is very simple. The guilty ones have to be arrested and
prosecuted. There seems to be a lot of rotten eggs in the IDF. What does
it mean when the IDF is opening a criminal inquiry? Does anyone know
what the relaxed rules of engagement involve concretely?
k
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_ISRAEL_PALESTINIANS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2009-03-20-16-54-20
Mar 20, 4:54 PM EDT
New details of Israeli war conduct emerge
By JOSEF FEDERMAN
Associated Press Writer
JERUSALEM (AP) -- An increasingly disturbing picture of the Israeli
army's conduct in the Gaza war emerged Friday, as new witness accounts
from Israeli troops described wanton vandalism to Palestinian homes,
humiliation of civilians and loose rules of engagement that resulted in
unnecessary civilian deaths.
The revelations of soldier conduct over the past two days have set off
soul-searching and alarm in a country where the military is widely
revered. They also have echoed Palestinian allegations that Israel's
assault did not distinguish between civilians and combatants, at a time
when some international human rights groups contend Israel violated the
laws of war.
Israel launched the offensive on Dec. 27 in what it said was an effort
to end years of Palestinian rocket attacks from Gaza. The Palestinian
Center for Human Rights, which conducted a survey of casualties, says a
total of 1,417 people were killed, including 926 civilians during the
22-day offensive.
Israel has disputed the findings, saying the most of the dead were
legitimate targets, but it offered no evidence. Thirteen Israelis also
died in the fighting.
The Israeli government has insisted it did all it could to prevent
civilian casualties, but on Thursday, the army ordered a criminal
inquiry into its own soldiers' reports that some troops killed
civilians, including children, by hastily opening fire, confident that
the relaxed rules of engagement would protect them.
The inquiry was based on postwar testimony from a gathering of soldiers
involved in the offensive, published in a military institute's
newsletter and leaked to two Israeli newspapers. The Haaretz daily
published additional details Friday, and the transcript of the session
was obtained by The Associated Press.
According to one account, an Israeli sniper killed a Palestinian woman
and her two children after they misunderstood another soldier's order
and turned the wrong way. The sniper was not told the civilians had been
released from the house and, in compliance with standing orders, opened
fire when they approached him.
In another account, an elderly woman was shot dead while walking on a
road. The soldier who described the incident, identified only as "Aviv,"
said it was not clear whether the woman was a threat.
"From the description of this story, I simply felt it was murder in cold
blood," Aviv said, according to the transcript. "The order was to take
that woman out, the moment you see her."
Aviv said in one instance, his unit was sent to take over a house by
bursting in, going up floor by floor and shooting anyone they saw.
"I call this murder," he said. "From above they said it was permissible,
because anyone who remained in the sector and inside Gaza City was in
effect condemned, a terrorist, because they hadn't fled."
In the end, he said he managed to change the order so residents would be
given five minutes to leave their homes, drawing protests from other
soldiers. "Anyone who's in there is a terrorist, that's a known fact,"
he quoted another soldier as saying.
Aviv said he felt an attitude among soldiers that "inside Gaza you are
allowed to do anything you want, to break down doors of houses for no
reason other than that it's cool."
"To write 'Death to the Arabs' on the walls, to take family pictures and
spit on them, just because you can," he said.
The army said Friday it had no additional comment beyond Thursday's
announcement of the inquiry. During the fighting, the military
acknowledged loosening the rules of engagement, aiming to reduce
casualties among Israeli troops.
Another soldier, Ram, described what appeared to be a rift between
secular and religious soldiers.
"What I do remember in particular at the beginning is the feeling of an
almost religious mission," he said. He described a "huge gap" between
background material provided by the army's education corps, and
religious material distributed by the army's rabbinate.
"Their message was very clear: 'We are the Jewish people, we came to
this land by a miracle. God brought us back to this land, and now we
need to fight to expel the gentiles who are interfering with our
conquest of this holy land,'" he said.
Earlier this year, the military "severely reprimanded" an officer for
distributing a religious booklet urging soldiers to show no mercy to
their enemies. The army said the booklet was based on the writings of an
ultranationalist rabbi and that the chief military rabbi had not
approved it.
The published accounts revealed debate and soul-searching among the
soldiers. Discussing the death of the old woman, one soldier, Zvi, said
the shooting could be understood in the context of the battle zone.
"Logic says she should be there," he said. "It's known that they have
lookouts and that sort of thing."
And Yossi said his unit was forced to clean up a home it had occupied on
the same day that a Palestinian rocket wounded a mother and baby in an
Israeli city. He said soldiers were unhappy, but complied.
"In the end I was convinced, and realized it was the right thing to do,"
he said.
Danny Zamir, the head of the institute, called the discussion
"instructive," but also "dismaying and depressing."
"You are describing an army with very low norms of value," he said.
The heavy Palestinian civilian casualties and widespread destruction
during the three-week war provoked international outcry against Israel, which halted its fire on Jan. 18.'
1 opmerking:
Wat is dat voor gejengel over die vrouw met 2 kinderen? Of zij nou links of rechts wou, ze waren er en nu niet meer, net zoals zovelen die zaten,stonden,lagen en renden. Deze mensen zijn afgeslacht. Genocide. Ordinaire moordpartijen, mensen als schietschijven op de Israelische kermis. Godverdegodverdegodver.
Anzi
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