Israel/Lebanon/Gaza conflict (continuation thread)

Certain abuses committed by the Israeli army constituted crimes against humanity and war crimes, including unlawful killings; extensive and wanton destruction of property; obstruction of medical assistance and targeting of medical personnel; torture; and the use of Palestinians as “human shields”. The deliberate targeting of civilians by Palestinian armed groups constituted crimes against humanity....”Human shields’Israeli soldiers continued to use Palestinians as “human shields” during military operations, forcing them to carry out tasks that endangered their lives, despite an injunction by the Israeli High Court banning the practice. A petition against the use of “human shields” submitted by Israeli and Palestinian human rights organizations to the Supreme Court in May 2002 was still pending at the end of 2004.* In April, Israeli soldiers used 13-year-old Muhammed Badwan as a “human shield” during a demonstration in the West Bank village of Biddu. The soldiers placed the boy on the hood of their jeep and tied him to the front windscreen to discourage Palestinian demonstrators from throwing stones in their direction.

Amnesty International welcomes the banning, by Israel's High Court, of the use of Palestinians as "human shields" by the Israeli army. The long-awaited High Court ruling of 6 October 2005 came in response to a petition filed in May 2002 by several Israeli and Palestinian human rights organizations seeking a ban of the practice, which endangered the lives of the Palestinians who were used as "human shields" and violated international law, notably Article 51 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.In recent years, Amnesty International investigated tens of cases where the Israeli army used Palestinians, children as well as adults, as "human shields" during military operations in towns and refugee camps throughout the Occupied Territories. Palestinian civilians were forced to walk in front of Israeli soldiers who, at times, fired their weapons while shielding themselves behind the civilians. As well, Palestinian civilians were made to enter houses ahead of Israeli soldiers to check for explosives or gunmen hiding inside, to inspect suspicious objects, to stay in their houses when Israeli soldiers took them over to use as sniper positions, or to enter the houses of wanted, possibly armed, Palestinians to tell them to surrender to Israeli forces.The High Court failed to rule on the issue for three and a half years after receiving the petition calling for the practice to be outlawed. During this time, the Israeli army continued to use Palestinians as "human shields" and, in response to the petition, claimed that Palestinians were used only to perform tasks to which they agreed and which the military commander deemed safe. The army initially referred to the practice as "neighbourhood procedure" and subsequently as "prior warning procedure".

Israeli forces used Palestinians as "human shields" in violation of applicable Israeli law. In 2002, the Israeli High Court of Justice granted an injunction against the use of Palestinians as "shields" for Israeli forces. The IDF admitted violations of existing procedures and reiterated that IDF forces "are absolutely forbidden to use civilians of any kind as a means of 'living shield' against gunfire or attack by the Palestinian side, or as 'hostages.'" However, IDF soldiers were permitted to seek consensual assistance of civilians in operations. Human rights groups asserted that Palestinians who consented often did so out of fear even if they were not coerced. Such Palestinians face the risk of being branded as collaborators.

The Israeli army has signalled its intention to keep using Palestinian civilians as human shields in operations aimed at assassinating, arresting or kidnapping Palestinian political and resistance activists.The Israeli High Court issued a ruling earlier this week barring the army from using Palestinian civilians as human shields, a practice used heavily in the West Bank, particularly since the outbreak of the Palestinian intifada or uprising in 2000.On Tuesday, Israeli military sources said the army would press the High Court to reconsider the ruling on the ground that it would complicate "army activities" in the West Bank.The army has sought to downplay the gravity of the "human shield practice", describing it as a "generally innocuous early warning procedure".

B'Tselem's initial investigation indicates that, during an incursion by Israeli forces into Beit Hanun, in the northern Gaza Strip, on 17 July 2006, soldiers seized control of two buildings in the town and used residents as human shield.

The soldiers in the field did not initiate this practice; rather, the order to use civilians as a means of protection was made by senior army officials.

Human ShieldsSuspected execution of Mahmud Kmel and use of Palestianians as human shields by IDF soldiers in Raba, Jenin District, December 2004
Tayil Muhammad Al-Bazur
Suleiman Ahmad Muhammad QasrawiTulkarm Refugee Camp: IDF soldiers use Ahmad 'Asaf as a human shield, January 2004
Ahmad Abd al-Qader Ahmad 'AsafNablus: IDF use 'Ula 'Awad, as a human shield, March, 2003
'Ula Kamal Shafik 'AwadNablus: IDF soldiers use Nabhan Najar as a human shield, December 2002
Nabhan Tawfiq 'Ali NajarHebron: IDF soldiers beat and abuse Palestinians in barbershop, December 2002
Wa'il Mahmoud Muhammad Abu Rumeileh
Bilal Ma'adi Daud a-Rajbi
Bassem Yasser Khalf Maswadeh
Muhammad Jibril Jamil a-RajbiJenin: IDF soldiers use Khaled Kamil as a human shield, November 2002
Khaled Ibrahim Muhammad KamilIDF uses Husam Subuh and Tawfiq Salah as human shields, September 2002
Husam Salim Ahmad Ahmad Subuh
Tawfiq Zaqi Yusef SalahIDF use Palestinian man, Mahmud Abu 'Arara, as a human shield, September 2002
Mahmoud Narmi Hamed Abu 'AraraJenin District: IDF use Shaf'a Ghanem, as a human shield, September 2002
Shaf'a Mahmud Shaf'a GhanemIDF use Samir Abu 'Amra and Ahmad Abu 'Amra as human shields, August 2002
Samir Muhammad Hmeidan Abu Amra

2006Israeli Soldiers Use Palestinians as Human Shields during Incursion into Beit Hanun, July 2006
Hazem 'Othman Qassem 'AliLaila Shqeirat attempts to conduct normal life routine while leaving in the besieged village of a-Sheikh Sa'ed, June 2006
Lila 'Abd al-Musa ShqeiratBorder Police beat bus driver Fadel 'Alan at when he brought disabled children home to a-Sheikh Sa'ed, May 2006
Fadel Muhammad 'Abdallah 'Alan64 year-old resident of a-Sheikh Sa'ed with chest pains forced to walk two hours to reach the hospital
Ahmad Muhammad Mashur al-MashaharehBorder Police officer beats Ra'id Fatafteh at checkpoint, injuring him, Hebron, May 2006
Ra'id Mahmoud 'Abd a-Salam FataftehIDF soldiers beat two press photographers in Hebron, April 2006
Nayef Diab 'Abd al-Hafiz al-HashlamouniIDF shells inhabited area in Beit Lahiya, hits house, wounding four persons, 4 April 2006
Yusef Ahmad Salama Abu Shmas
Mustafa Ahmad Salama Abu ShmasIDF soldiers shoot youth to death in the Qalandia refugee camp, Ramallah District, April 2006
Nader Naji Muhammad 'OthmanSoldiers fire at Palestinians sneaking into Israel to work, severely wounding one of them, Deir Ballut, April 2006
Maher Muhammad 'Abed al-Hamid Shaqarneh
Khaled Ahmad Muhammad FanunSettlers assault Palestinian shepherds sleeping in tents in the southern Hebron hills, 26 March 2006
'Aziz Musa Muhammad Shnaran
'Abd a-Rahman Musa Muhammad ShnaranIDF soldiers shoot 7 year-old to death in al-Yamun, Jenin district, March 2006
Kamal 'Izzat Taher ZaidSoldiers humiliated Palestinian detainees during IDF assault on Jericho Prison, March 2006
Fadi Fathi Yusef Abu TabikhSettlers beat Jamal a-Nawaj'a and throw stones at his mother and wife, in Susiya, March 2006
Jamal Isma'il a-Nawaj'ah
Samiha 'Ikab a-Nawaj'ah
'Alia Khamis a-Nawaj'ahPlain Clothed Police beat two children in Abu Tor, East Jerusalem, 12 March 2006
Hamza Fawzi Musa 'EwidahIDF soldiers beat 7 Palestinian youths, 5 of them minors, Hebron area, March 2006
Tamer Yusef Muhammad 'Amru
Muhammad Maher Muhammad 'AbidoSoldiers disrupt work in charcoal factory near Jenin, February 2006
Muhammad Ahmad Ibrahim 'AbadiIDF soldiers beat Palestinan youths at a checkpoint near the al-Fawwar refugee camp, February 2006
'Alaa Nafez 'Abd al-Majid Hilkawi
Alaa Khader Muhammad al-Ma'iwiSoldiers confiscate identity card of Palestinian for remaining in the Jordan Valley without a permit, February 2006
Ra'id Hassan Muhammad SawaftahBorder Police fire stun grenade at child, wounding him in the head, Shu'afat refugee camp, East Jerusalem, February. 2006
Ahmad Muhammad 'Isma'il al-'Amleh
Ibrahim Isma'il Muhammad al-'AmlehIDF soldiers beat Faris 'Awidat while detaining him, 2 February 2006
Fares Kamel Salem 'AweidatPalestinian mother prevented from visiting her married daughter in the Jordan Valley, January 2006
Ni'meh 'Ali Salameh Abu ZaharahIDF soldiers beat 17-year-old at a surprise checkpoint, January 2006
Jihad Mustafa Khaled Harzalla

Human ShieldsSoldiers' Abuse of Palestinians in Hebron
Case Study No. 17, December 2002
View summary
Download the report: DOC, Zipped RTF, PDFHuman Shield: Use of Palestinian Civilians as Human Shields in Violation of the High Court of Justice Order December 2003
Information Sheet, November 2002
View summary
Download the report: DOC, RTF, PDFOperation Defensive Shield: Soldiers' Testimonies, Palestinian Testimonies
Journal, September 2002
Download the report: PDF

azem says he had little idea at the time exactly how long he was kept there. All he remembers was listening to the heavy gunfire around him, and counting the calls to prayer as they echoed over the area: one at lunchtime, one at tea-time, and one in the evening as the sun set. Twelve hours in all.He says he expected to die any second. He still can't understand why, as civilians, they couldn't be kept in a room somewhere inside the house, where they would have been safer. But they put us in the middle of the clashes, he says. "There was no need for that."

As you will all have doubtless seen by now four UN observes have been killed by an Israeli air strike. They weren't in a vehicle on the road, they were in a fixed UN observation post. Prior to the air strike Israel shelled the post 14 times[1].

The U.N. observers killed when an Israeli bomb made a direct hit on their bunker in southern Lebanon Tuesday called an Israeli military liaison about 10 times in the six hours before they died to warn that the aerial attacks were getting close to their position, according to a U.N. officer.After each call, the Israeli officer promised to have the bombing stopped, an officer at the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) base in Noqoura said.Finally, an Israeli bomb exploded directly on the U.N. post near Khiyam, killing four U.N. observers from Austria, Finland, Canada and China, the U.N. officer said.

"This coordinated artillery and aerial attack on a long established and clearly marked U.N. post at Khiyam occurred despite personal assurances given to me by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that U.N. positions would be spared Israeli fire," Annan said."Furthermore, General Alain Pelligrini, the U.N. force commander in south Lebanon, had been in repeated contact with Israeli officers throughout the day on Tuesday, stressing the need to protect that particular U.N. position from attack."The timeline provided CNN by a U.N. officer in Lebanon showed the first bomb exploded about 200 yards from the U.N. outpost at 1:20 p.m. Tuesday, prompting the first call by the UNIFIL observers to their designated contact with the Israeli military. The officer said they were assured by the Israeli liaison that he would stop the attacks.A series of about nine more bombs hit within 100 to 400 yards from the observers over the next several hours, with a call to the Israeli military following each explosion.The U.N. base at Noqoura lost contact with the outpost at 7:40 p.m., apparently the time of the direct hit, the officer said.

In the face of condemnation, and despite an initial apology, they are now claiming that Hezbollah was the guilty party. Given fog of war I suppose its possible.

There seems to be some moral calculus that the life of an Israeli is worth more than any amount of any other life.

They need to make the next step, which they should have taken initially, and force Israel to comply with Internation Law.

So the Israelis not only knew about the place before their strikes began, but did nothing in the face of reports from that position that it was under fire.

The USS Liberty was flying a large American flag in full view; there is no resemblance at all to the Egyptian steamer the Israelis used as an excuse; the weather was clear and since the attack went on for several hours it is impossible none of the attackers could have failed to notice the American markings and flag; also, recorded radio transmissions between Israeli pilots and their base contained confirmation of an American ship but orders were given to attack anyway. It was no accident.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=2006071405042...

The literature suggests that there is a consistent set of predictive factors that are common to states in which genocides occur. These countries tend to follow this model: a non-democratic government that demonstrates a pattern of discriminatory and exclusionary policy, a “history of... violent ethnic conflict," and a strong foreign ally that helps shield the country from international pressures.
“More proximately, an ethnic rebellion has started or a war. The dominant group”the future genocide perpetrators who control the state”engages in a massive hate and fear propaganda campaign in the media in which the future victims are dehumanized, demonized, and targeted. The dominant group organizes paramilitary militias; with the help of the army, it arms, trains, and indoctrinates militia members for killing the target group. These are the most common and most visible indicators of early warning."