Evidence of war crimes in Gaza conflict must be investigated
Over the last four weeks the world has looked on in horror as women, men and children have borne the brunt of the conflict in the Gaza Strip and Southern Israel. It is not just the number of casualties that has sent shockwaves, but the high proportion - around half – who are civilians.
Their deaths and injuries are not the inevitable consequences of war, and can not be discounted as 'collateral damage'. These casualties represent mounting evidence of war crimes, committed on both sides of the conflict.
A ceasefire has been declared. Now it is imperative the United Nations and international community fully investigate these crimes and hold the perpetrators to account.
International law prohibits attacks on civilians and civilian objects, as well as attacks that are disproportionate and/or indiscriminate and which endanger civilians.
Yet, for eight years, both sides in the conflict have been guilty of targeting or endangering civilians. Since September 2000, Palestinian groups have killed some 1,100 Israelis and Israeli forces have killed some 5,500 Palestinians.
Israeli forces have bombed civilian homes and other buildings, arguing that they had been used as cover by gunmen firing at Israeli targets. However, Israeli forces know that Palestinian fighters usually vacate the areas as soon as they have fired, and that any reprisal attacks will in most cases cause harm to civilians, not gunmen.
In further contravention of international law, during the recent conflict Israel continued its blockade of Gaza, denying access to humanitarian and medical assistance. On the Palestinian side, Amnesty International has for years condemned and campaigned against human rights abuses committed by armed groups, including suicide bombing and rocket attacks.
Both Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunmen have fired at each other from areas close to civilian homes, endangering their inhabitants. Further, Israeli soldiers and Palestinian fighters have used Palestinian civilians as human shields, a practice prohibited under the Geneva conventions.
In the past, Israeli soldiers have frequently taken over Palestinian homes, effectively imprisoning their occupants, to use as military observation and firing positions. In other cases, they have forced Palestinian civilians, at gunpoint, to go before them into buildings from which they feared attack.
These practices must be the subject of an urgent and thorough independent and impartial investigation by the United Nations. The UN should insist on full accountability for war crimes and other serious violations committed during this conflict. Alleged violations must be thoroughly and impartially investigated, and any persons found responsible brought to justice in fair trials.
In the meantime, the UN Security Council must assist the success of a ceasefire by imposing an immediate, comprehensive arms embargo on all parties to the conflict in Gaza to prevent any further flow of arms to the region.
Those who provide weapons and other military equipment or assistance to the parties involved in this conflict are not living up to their responsibility to ensure that the equipment is not used to violate human rights.
A Security Council arms embargo will not only help to prevent new weapons supplies reaching the two sides, but will also send a powerful signal to Israel and Hamas about the Council’s determination to uphold international law. On both sides of the conflict, perpetrators of war crimes must be brought to justice.
To join Amnesty International in calling for full accountability for the Gaza violence visit www.amnesty.org.au
Comments
GrahamW | Posted on 4 February 2009, 06:04PM | Report comment
pulling figures out of thin air again Steve Lieblich - such figures out of context have no meaning. Think HISTORY, THINK BLOCKADES, ETC.ETC.ETC.
Amnesty International goes to immense care to ensure accuracy and even-handedness in its reports taking full account of circumstances and historical settings and so they are highly respected throughout the world at all levels - (except by you of course!!) in such contrast to you.
Just go and have a look, do a bit of Googling and see who is using Amnesty reports on the current Israeli civilian massacres.
Steve Lieblich | Posted on 4 February 2009, 04:29PM | Report comment
Ther have been 1,200 Israelis killed and 8,000 injured by Arab terrorists since 2000, in suicide bombings, drive-up-alongside-your-car-on-the-freeway and shoot-through-the-window, stabbings, rockest and mortars ALL TARGETTING CIVILIANS.
IT’S BEEN GOING ON FOR EIGHT YEARS!!!!
Where is the Amensty International “indignation” for that????
Steve Lieblich | Posted on 4 February 2009, 04:26PM | Report comment
See http://jiw.blogspot.com/2009/02/iraqi-woman-had-80-women-raped-then.html
for a report about A WOMAN suspected of recruiting more than 80 female suicide bombers who has confessed to organising their rapes so she could later convince them that martyrdom was the only way to escape the shame.
Where is the AI “indignation”????
Terry Spek | Posted on 4 February 2009, 09:46AM | Report comment
Elka, part of the reason Trumans words have a ring of truth is because countries like the US consistently veto or vote against any UN action that whilst in the interest of humanity, is not in the interest of there political agenda.
What little is left that the UN does not get its arms tied on by bullies like US, Russia and China, is still of great importance though.
I think you’d be hard pressed to convince starving refugees that food aid the UN organises is “do-nothing, good-for-nothing”
GrahamW | Posted on 3 February 2009, 05:27PM | Report comment
In Lancet:
two surgeons describe their experience of working in Gaza during the Israeli invasion. An exerpt here - see the full account - REMARKABLE
http://www.thelancetglobalhealthnetwork.com/archives/608
“Executions
Survivors describe Israeli tanks arriving in front of homes asking residents to come out. Children, old people and women would come forward and as they were lined up they were just fired on and killed. Families have lost tens of their members through such executions. The deliberate targeting of unarmed children and women is well documented by human right groups in the Gaza Strip over the past month.”
GrahamW | Posted on 3 February 2009, 04:17PM | Report comment
“The number and scope of individuals and agencies calling for independent, international investigations of war crimes is unprecedented,” says Phyllis Bennis, director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington.
In an interview with U.N. Bureau Chief Thalif Deen, she pointed out that calls for such an investigation have come not only from high-ranking U.N. officials and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) but also from virtually every international human rights organisation operating in the area.
http://pulsemedia.org/2009/02/02/israel-may-escape-war-crimes-charges/
GrahamW | Posted on 3 February 2009, 04:16PM | Report comment
What are the specific war crimes Israel is accused of committing?
http://pulsemedia.org/2009/02/02/israel-may-escape-war-crimes-charges/
The Geneva Convention’s prohibitions against collective punishment, targeting civilians, and disproportionate military force were all violated, as was Geneva’s requirement that Israel provide medical care for the wounded. The use of sometimes-legal white phosphorous and DIME weapons was made illegal under the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons by Israel’s decision to use them in densely-populated civilian neighbourhoods. Israel’s (and Egypt’s) denial of the Palestinian civilians’ right to flee to find refuge over Gaza’s borders may represent a newly-defined war crime.
Elka | Posted on 3 February 2009, 02:46PM | Report comment
Naomi and Steve are 100% correct in asking for an IMPARTIAL body to investigate this false report. And to quote former U.S. president Harry Truman “The U.N.Council is a do-nothing, good-for-nothing council.”
The fact that Hamas was ‘democratically elected’ reminds me of how Hitler was democratically elected.
Go to U.N. Watch to hear THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY
GrahamW | Posted on 3 February 2009, 08:54AM | Report comment
BLOCKADE - YES THATS IT - NOTE THIS-
“Gaza’s devastation has not only been caused by the recent three-week conflict. Humanitarian aid organizations have been denied access to the Gaza Strip since November 4, and this is utterly impeding our ability to respond to the humanitarian disaster we are faced with today,” said Martha Myers, country director for CARE in the West Bank and Gaza. “The 18-month blockade of Gaza has left the population weakened and completely unprepared to recover from the current crisis without outside help
http://www.care.org/newsroom/articles/2009/01/20090122_gaza_update.asp
GrahamW | Posted on 3 February 2009, 08:39AM | Report comment
BLOCKADE
GrahamW | Posted on 3 February 2009, 08:38AM | Report comment
Read this letter from the CARE Director in Gaza and weep with these people, for their loss of loved ones, homes, livelihood,land, farms, country - everything—and still it goes on - the cruel and brutal blockage, the imprisonment of years.
http://www.care.org/newsroom/articles/2009/01/gaza-aid-witness-letter-20090130.asp
GrahamW | Posted on 2 February 2009, 06:42PM | Report comment
Steve Lieblich -there are many interpretations of this attack on the internet. I have read the article by Patrick Martin you have selectively quoted. Here is another quote from the same article:
“I know no one was killed in the school,” Mr. Ging said. “But 41 innocent people were killed in the street outside the school. Many of those people had taken refuge in the school and wandered out onto the street.
“The state of Israel still has to answer for that. What did they know and what care did they take?”
Why did they go out in the street? Because they thought the school was under attack!!!!!
Sandy | Posted on 2 February 2009, 05:57PM | Report comment
INVESTIGATIONS ...certainly, but from an impartial person, not biased bodies like UNRWA nor Amnesty International.
Steve | Posted on 2 February 2009, 05:55PM | Report comment
Account of Israeli attack on UN School doesn’t hold up to scrutiny
From Globe and Mail (Canada), January 29, 2009, by PATRICK MARTIN:
JABALYA, GAZA STRIP ...Physical evidence and interviews with several eyewitnesses…make it clear: ... no one in the [UNRWA] compound was killed. The 43 people who died in the incident were all outside, on the street, where all three mortar shells landed.
...The teacher who was in the compound at the time of the shelling ..., who refused to give his name because ...UNRWA had told the staff not to talk to the news media, was adamant: “Inside [the compound] there were 12 injured, but there were no dead.”
...Hazem Balousha, who runs an auto-body shop across the road from the UNRWA school, was down the street… when the three shells hit. ...“There were only three,” he said. “They were all out here on the road.” ...
GrahamW | Posted on 2 February 2009, 12:12PM | Report comment
Opps—here is the link to that excellent report by a Human Rights lawyer just back from Gaza http://www.labourhome.org/story/2009/2/1/122445/3573
GrahamW | Posted on 2 February 2009, 12:10PM | Report comment
Here is an Amnesty report researching allegations of war crimes with good video.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/video-and-audio/video-researching-allegations-war-crimes-israel-and-gaza-2009013
Here is a Human Rights lawyer’s account following his trip to Gaza earlier this week - EXCELLENT READING, particularly in terms of the effects of the blockade by Israel over the last 18 months.
Naomi Cartledge | Posted on 2 February 2009, 10:28AM | Report comment
Mohan, it is up to the people around the world to make Israel stop its abuses, and violent invasion/s of Palestine. Israel has ignored at least 65 UN Resolutions - US has either voted against or vetoed any directives of the UN. While Israel has US support, it gives the ‘middle finger’ to the UN, and the voices of many in Israel.
People power is the only solution. In spite of Israel’s refusal to allow journalists access to the reality, stories are comming out on a daily basis that are shocking in their brutality, & show the hatred and murderous intent of the IDF! The mantra chanted by the US/Australia etc, ‘that Israel has a right to exist’ should also apply to the Palestinians. The practice of blaming the people of Gaza for their deaths, is like blaming the victims of a knife attack, for ‘running into the blades of knives’? Stupid!
Killing peoples’ children, or whole families only creates more hatred! It’s just plain stupid, apart from the misery & trauma!
Mohan | Posted on 2 February 2009, 08:25AM | Report comment
Unfortunately, the US and the EU have not opposed Israel’s expansion of settlements and the siege of Gaza, in practice. The US should stop using vetos in support of Israel and stop exporting weapons and funding Israel’s expansion into the West Bank. Unless there is some form of opposition from governments, there is little hope for peace in the region.
Naomi Cartledge | Posted on 1 February 2009, 01:08PM | Report comment
Of course all people committing war crimes should have action taken against them, but Israel has set in place a system to ‘protect’ IDF personnel against actions being taken against them.
Of course, the logical solution is to remove the cause. Israel must stop stealing land that belongs to the Palestinians, and be forced to comply with the over 65 UN Resolutions that they’ve ignored for many decades. It’s almost impossible for the several million in Gaza to find areas ‘safe’ from the array of horrific bombs used by Israel, made and supplied by the US. Israel knows that the US will support their terrorist activities - perhaps we should start with that! The US will only veto any resolution they disagree with in the UN. It’s a joke, but nobody is laughing! Phosphorous bombs, prior to activities re Iran, and its forthcoming elections! Over 1300 people were killed for these ends!
Now we read of Israel’s actions as a ‘rehearsal’ re Iran? Shameful!