Notes from an illegal military court in Israel

Standing at well over six feet tall and hunching as he enters the military court room at Kishon prison in Israel, Hassan Karajah’s hands and legs are bound with chains.

The fifth Palestinian detainee brought before us on this day, his very presence as a prisoner within the borders of Israel is a war crime, violating the Fourth Geneva conventions’ provision that you may not bring occupied prisoners into your own territory.

Yet compliance with international law and human rights on the part of Israel has never been a part of Hassan’s story. A well-respected and admired Youth Organiser for the Stop the Wall campaign, Hassan is a human rights defender who works to resist Israel’s annexation of Palestinian land through a ‘security barrier’ ruled to be illegal by the International Court of Justice eight years ago.

Hassan’s case has received much international attention, with appeals from Amnesty International and Friends of the Earth demanding his immediate release and respect for his human rights. In South America, Brazil’s largest trade union, the CUT, have called on their government to intervene in Hassan’s case, whilst vigils have been held in front of the Israeli consulate in Argentina. Despite this, mainstream media outlets in the UK and US continue to maintain their silence.

Arrested on the 22nd of January, Hassan’s house was raided in the middle of the night, while soldiers wrecked his home and took his family’s possessions. Taken to the Israeli prison Kishon, near Haifa, Hassan was denied access to a lawyer for over two weeks. Despite his arrest being almost a month ago, Hassan is yet to be charged with any criminal offence. Even if he is, human rights monitor Addameer have stressed that since every political party in Palestine is classed as illegal by Israel, even President Mahmoud Abbas of the PA could be ‘lawfully’ detained at any point and held indefinitely. Additionally, a gathering of ten or more persons is also criminalized by Military Order 101, so the scope of committing a ‘crime’ is great. Such is the rule of law under Israeli occupation.

The court I entered on Thursday, February 14th differs from those in the US and UK in every respect. There is no jury, only military-appointed judges, who like the prosecutor, doubles as an officer for the Israeli occupying forces. We know we are under the auspices of Israel here, with a Star of David flag on the wall and all proceedings in Hebrew, evidence and questions must be translated to Hassan by a third military officer. Soldiers make up the rest of the courtroom, glaring at the defendant as they stroll up and down the lawyers’ desks, picking up papers and reading them as they please.

This court, to be blunt, is not a real court. The prosecutor has few notes with him, and just makes vague obfuscations about ‘security’ as a pretext for denying a man’s liberty for another two weeks, while the activist is investigated for a crime he is yet to be charged with. This has happened several times, each hearing an evitable extension of his interrogation. During the hearing, the prosecutor claims he has ‘secret evidence’ which only he and the military judge can see, where he almost comically whispers into his superior’s ear, the rest of the court left in the dark. The soldiers continue to walk and talk throughout proceedings, making calls on their phones then smoking outside, while we the observers look on with interest.

Speaking with Hassan’s defense team, I am disturbed to hear of his conditions. Although the entrance to the prison facility boasts the sign ‘Kishon Detention Home’ this Israeli facility is more akin to a torture chamber than anything else, with reports of systematic abuse at the prison, including that of children. The prison was equipped, I hasten to add, by British security firm G4S, who have faced trenchant criticism for their involvement with Israel’s occupation, including from some British MPs. Hassan has been held in a windowless cell, two metres by two metres, with just a dirty mattress for sleeping and a hole in the floor as a toilet, which often overflows frequently, dirtying the cell. Hassan is interrogated for up to fourteen hours a day, all of which he spends shackled and cuffed to a chair, causing pain. He has been beaten and threatened, and after appealing his arrest he was dragged in for further interrogations at 3am and told it was a punishment. He has been denied access to a Koran, which is his right, and the prison officials have refused to supply him with an adequate dosage of the medicine he desperately needs to tend to the nerve damage he has in his leg. This is clearly designed to pressure Hassan, and to weaken his resolve both mentally and physically.

Though Israel has formally signed and ratified the UN Convention against Torture they show clear disregard for Article 1:

‘the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession’

Shocked and appalled though I am, it is only a sign of my own naivete in the circumstances. Hassan is one of 4,743 prisoners held by Israel, who have detained40% of Palestinian men since their occupation, the longest in modern history, began in 1967. Currently, 178 of these are languishing in administrative detention, Israeli-speak for imprisonment without trial. A previous youth coordinator with Stop the Wall, Mohammed Othman, was also arrested in 2009 and held for 113 days without charge or trial.

While Hassan’s hearing and detention is a deplorable scene to bear witness to, the man himself fills us observers with a hope and an inspiration uncommon and unnatural to such grim settings. Time and again Hassan and I shared a thoughtful nod and a half-smile, while friends read messages to him and passed notes from his family, attracting the opprobrium of the prison guards. Hassan’s family were unable to attend the hearing due to it taking place within Israel, where they are banned from travelling. The extraction of prisoners into Israel is not only illegal but creates stress for families who are denied access to their loved ones. Hassan’s indomitable spirit was never more prominent than after the hearing was read out. As he was led out of the court room he made the universal symbol of peace, the two raised fingers, at least to let the world know he would continue his struggle for human rights.

Hassan’s story, as I have said, is one of many, in fact one of thousands. Israel’s violation of Hassan Karajah’s fundamental human rights in its system of unjustifiable military courts is one of the many ways the Israeli occupation attempts to break the will of the Palestinian people. The continuing of this despicable occupation only requires our silence; Hassan’s freedom only requires our action. More

Please sign this petition calling for the respecting of Hassan Karajah’s human rights, and his immediate release: http://www.stopthewall.org/2013/02/08/e-action-immediate-release-hassan-karajah

 

How Israel legitimises torturing Palestinians to death

Six days after Arafat Jaradat was arrested by the Israeli army and the Shin Bet, he was dead. Between the date of his arrest - February 18 - and the day of his death - February 23 - his lawyer Kamil Sabbagh met with Arafat only once: in front of a military judge at the Shin Bet's Kishon interrogation facility.

Sabbagh reported that when he saw Jaradat, the man was terrified. Arafat told his lawyer that he was in acute pain from being beaten and forced to sit in stress positions with his hands bound behind his back.

When it announced his death, Israeli Prison Service claimed Arafat - who leaves a pregnant widow and two children - died from cardiac arrest. However, the subsequent autopsy found no blood clot in his heart. In fact, the autopsy concluded that Arafat, who turned 30 this year, was in fine cardiovascular health.

What the final autopsy did find, however, was that Jaradat had been pummelled by repeated blows to his chest and body and had sustained a total of six broken bones in his spine, arms and legs; his lips lacerated; his face badly bruised.

The ordeal that Arafat suffered before he died at the hands of Israel's Shin Bet is common to many Palestinians that pass through Israel's prisons. According to the prisoners' rights organisation Addameer, since 1967, a total of 72 Palestinians have been killed as a result of torture and 53 due to medical neglect. Less than a month before Jaradat was killed, Ashraf Abu Dhra died while in Israeli custody in a case that Addameer argues was a direct result of medical neglect.

The legal impunity of the Shin Bet, commonly referred to as the GSS, and its torture techniques has been well established. Between 2001 and 2011, 700 Palestinianslodged complaints with the State Attorney's Office but not a single one has been criminally investigated.

Writing in Adalah's 2012 publication, On Torture [PDF], Bana Shoughry-Badarne, an attorney and the Legal Director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, wrote, "The GSS's impunity is absolute."

Israel's High Court has been extravagantly helpful in securing the Shin Bet with its imperviousness to accountability to international law, and thus enabling widespread and lethal torture.

In August of 2012, Israel's High Court rejected petitions submitted by Israeli human rights organisations Adalah, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and PCATI to demand that Israeli attorney general, Yehuda Weinstein, carry out criminal investigations into each allegation of torture by the Shin Bet.

And in the first week of February, two weeks before Arafat was killed, the High Court of Justice threw out Adalah's petition that demanded the GSS videotape and audio record all of its interrogations in order to comply with requirements of the United Nations Convention Against Torture (CAT) to which Israel is a signatory.

In May 2009, UNCAT condemned [PDF] Israel for exempting the Shin Bet's interrogations from audio and video recording, noting that such oversight is an essential preventative measure to curtail torture. Yet despite this admonition, in 2012 the Knesset extended the exemption for another three years.

Rationalising its failure to comply with this most basic requirement of recording interrogations, the State maintains that it is in the interests of "national security" that its interrogation techniques not be made public. More

 

 

India opens the floodgates for extinguishment of Indigenous Rights

India's central government has walked away from its position on the need to obtain consent from Indigenous peoples and forest dwellers before handing their lands over to industry.

On February 15, the central government announced that major "linear projects" such as roads, railways, transmission lines, canal systems and pipelines do not need to obtain consent from affected forest populations before clearing their lands. The announcement, which stands in sharp contrast to provisions in the Forest Rights Act, could now make way for hundreds of new industrial projects that would have never otherwise seen the light of day.

"This is serious breach of trust and a huge step back in ensuring the dignity and survival of traditional forest-dwelling people across the country", said Dr. Swati Shresth, from the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment. "Forests are going to be cleared to make way for a particular kind of economic development; it will adversely impact communities and the environment."

Just four years ago, the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) made the matter of consent of affected communities mandatory for all projects that would destroy forests. The landmark decision came in direct response to the attempt by UK-based mining company Vedanta Resources Inc. to clear the Dongria Kondh's lands. Last week's announcement effectly revokes that mandatory rule.

On the same day of the announcement, the MoEF took another troubling step away from Indigenous Rights, while reiterating the inviolable nature of those rights.

In an affidavit that was filed in the Supreme Court in the ongoing case with Vedanta, the MoEF reiterated that mining in Niyamgiri hills cannot be permitted, stating that:

"The diversion of forest land on the proposed mining site of the Lanjigarh bauxite mining lease is violative of the fundamental rights of the Dongria Kondh tribals as well as the spirit of Forest Rights Act especially for the vulnerable tribal groups such as the Dongria Kondh and thus cannot be allowed for this reason alone.

"More than 7 sq. km. of the sacred undisturbed forests on top of the mountain, where the proposed mining lease area of the Lanjigarh bauxite mining lease is located has been protected for centuries by the Dongria Kondh, a primitive tribal group [now termed as particularly vulnerable tribe] as sacred to their deity. Diversion of these sacred areas for mining will undermine the customary rights of the Dongria Kondhs to protect their sacred places of worship and thereby amount to a violation of their fundamental right to manage their own affairs in the matter of religion and fundamental right to conserve the culture of their own. It was also in direct violation further of the specific provisions of the Forest Rights Act."

This is, of course, great news for the Dongia Kondh who continue to stand in steadfast opposition to Vedanta's mining interests on their sacred land. http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/forest-land-cannot-be-diverted-for-vedanta-project-says-centre/article4420821.ece?textsize=large&test=1

Speaking on the broader issue of consent, the MoEF went on to say that "No eviction of eligible forest dwellers can take place till the process of recognition and vesting of individual and community forest right under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act is complete."

However, the MoEF then did an about face. As reported by Down to Earth, the Ministry stated that such consent is only required in cases where "displacement of large number of people" is involved and which "affect the quality of life of the people".

In cases where the diversion of such forest land is "unavoidable" where rights of the forest dwellers are recognized, their rights may be "circumscribed or extinguished using the eminent domain of the state". More

 

The ethnic cleansing of the Jordan Valley

Consider the following quotation, taking into account its moral, political and legal implications:

Map: ARIJ) Click to enlarge

‘You don’t simply bundle people onto trucks and drive them away ... I prefer to advocate a more positive policy, to create, in effect, a condition that in a positive way will induce people to leave’ (PDF)

This is Ariel Sharon, former Prime Minister of Israel, speaking about the Palestinians who inhabit Israel’s most prized territory after Jerusalem -- the Jordan Valley. Just over a quarter of the West Bank and stretching 70km along the River Jordan from the Dead Sea in the south to Israel’s border in the north, the Jordan Valley is now home to some 50,000 Palestinians and over 9,000 Israeli-Jewish settlers, who live in what one Palestinian NGO described as ‘Parallel Realities’.

Israel has long-coveted the Jordan Valley. Shortly after the Knesset approved Oslo II, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin declared, “the security border to protect the State of Israel will be set in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of this term.” The view of this supposedly ‘liberal Zionist’ PM is mirrored by that of current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who declared that the army “must remain along the Jordan River in any future agreement.” Reflecting the prioritisation of the Jordan Valley even over other settlement areas in the West Bank, settlers receive exorbitant incentives to move there Israel has declared the entire West Bank, or Judea and Samaria as it stubbornly refers to it, as a ‘National Priority Area’ bringing subsidies for housing, free education and tax cuts, whilst settlers told Ma’an Development Center that the Jordan Valley remains the cheapest to move to through incentives.

The dichotomy in living standards between Palestinians and Israeli settlers in the West Bank has drawn a series of analogies between the Jewish state and the apartheid state of South Africa. John Dugard, who hails from the latter and was UN special rapporteur to the Palestinian territories, has called for the International Court of Justice to rule on whether apartheid is practised there or not, and his views have been echoed by Richard A. Falk, his successor in the UN role. Yet in the Jordan Valley, elements of Israel’s policy clearly go far beyond the legal definition of apartheid. The annexation of territory and imposition of impossible living standards on the Palestinians forcing them to move most closely resembles ethnic cleansing. Or as Ariel Sharon euphemistically puts it in the earlier quotation, Israel is "inducing people to leave".

Accusations of ethnic cleansing have also been levelled against Israel, albeit with less coverage than the apartheid analogy. Richard Falk has asked that the ICJ investigate Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from East Jerusalem, whilst Israeli historian and political activist Ilan Pappe, author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, has persuasively argued that actions by Jewish paramilitaries to forcibly transfer 700,000 Palestinians during 1947-49 merit the label of ‘ethnic cleansing’. The term is gaining ground. Given there are several reports of forced displacement and transfer of Palestinians from the Jordan Valley into other areas of Palestine, it would appear that ethnic cleansing may be taking place in that region through the slow and silent destruction of the means of life for Palestinians.

The legal definition of ethnic cleansing is somewhat vague. Unlike the crime of apartheid, which is mentioned in several conventions of international law and the Rome Statue of the International Criminal Court, there is no widely acknowledged prohibition on ethnic cleansing. Palestinian legal monitor Al Haq has argued, ‘It seems that “ethnic cleansing” is a composite term that covers various violations of IHL (International Humanitarian Law), such as the grave breach of “unlawful deportation or transfer” of a civilian (Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention).’ As previously mentioned, UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk has used the term to describe Israel’s policy of creating an ethnically-pure or Jewish-dominated East Jerusalem, whilst the UN Security Council has passed resolutions condemning ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia. Additionally, the International Criminal Court regards ‘forcible transfer of population’ as a crime against humanity. When this transfer is based on ethnic criteria as in East Jerusalem, it could be argued ethnic cleansing has occurred. In the former Yugoslavia the ethnic cleansing was not just confined to massacres but as the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia stated, “Serb municipal authorities and Serb forces created severe living conditions for Muslims and Croats which aimed, and succeeded, in making it practically impossible for most of them to remain.” This is Israel’s policy in the Jordan Valley.

A series of policies combine to make life as difficult as possible in the Eastern portion of the West Bank along the Jordan, including restricting movement, healthcare, water resources and stifling economic development. The combination of policies has been described by the UN’s Human Rights Council as having a devastating effect. With reference to Area C, which comprises 95% of the Jordan Valley, ‘79% of the communities surveyed recently do not have enough nutritious food; this is a rate higher than in blockaded Gaza, where it is 61%.’ Ma’an Development have carried out numerous highly informative reports on the Jordan Valley region, where they have described a contrast between Israeli settlers and Palestinians that is even more acute than the rest of the West Bank. More

 

Are some Israeli's on their way to becoming Nazis? by Haitham Sabbah

Some and perhaps many will regard my headline question as offensive but I make no apology for asking it; and I take comfort from the fact that my decision to pose it is fully supported by one of my very dear Jewish friends – Nazi holocaust survivor Dr. Hajo Meyer.

Before I ran my proposed headline past him, I was well aware that he believes, and has said in public, that Zionism is seeking to dehumanize the Palestinians in the same way the Nazis sought to dehumanize him in theAuschwitz concentration camp.

When I asked him if he thought my proposed headline question should be asked, he said “Yes, absolutely.” He added: “Zionism is to modern enlightened Judaism what Nazism was toGermany’s traditional ethical values.” (One of Hajo’s most important books is titled An Ethical Tradition Betrayed, The End of Judaism).

The headline was provoked in my mind at the end of October by the announcement that with the approach of next January’s election, Israel’s ruling Likud party led by Prime Minister Netanyahu is joining forces with Yisrael Beiteinu, the ultra-nationalist group led by Avigdor Lieberman, the extreme-right foreign minister in the present coalition government.

As noted by Larry Derfner (who was fired from The Jerusalem Post for telling some truths on his web site), “Lieberman has a thoroughly deserved international reputation as an Arab-hating, war-loving, neo-fascist”. (Derfner also noted that the label “neo-fascist” was pinned on Lieberman by Martin Peretz, “the stridently pro-Israel, ex-publisher of The New Republic.”)

Fascism is one of those concept words with meaning that depends to some extent on what is happening at a particular moment in history. Germany under Hitler, Italy under Mussolini and Spain under Franco were fascist states. The hallmarks of this fascism were governments dominated by dictators with magnetic personalities, who rallied their followers with messages which appealed to strident nationalism and promoted suspicion or hatred of both foreigners and “impure” people within their own nations (mainly Jews in Hitler’s case).

Today the term fascist is generally used to describe governments or individual leaders (as well as military dictatorships) which practice racism even if they do not preach it, and act in an arbitrary, self-righteous way in defiance of international law.

In October 2010, Uri Avnery wrote a warning piece with the headline Weimar In Jerusalem: The Rise of fascism in Israel. He concluded that Israel was not yet the “goose-stepping” Germany of Hitler’s days but could become something very like it unless Israeli society mobilized the democratic forces within itself. He added: ”But for that to happen, it must awake from the coma, understand what is happening and where it is leading to, protest and struggle by all available means – as long as that is still possible – in order to arrest the fascist wave that is threatening to engulf us.” More

 

More collective punishment of Palestinian's by Isreal

Palestinian official accuses Israel of desperation after second punitive response to UN vote recognising state of Palestine.

Mahmud Abbas in Ramallah

Israel has seized more than $120m (£75m)in tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority in response to last week's overwhelming vote at the UN general assembly to recognise the state of Palestine.

The move came as the PA president, Mahmoud Abbas, returned to cheering crowds in Ramallah in the West Bank following Thursday's vote, in which 138 countries backed enhanced "non-member state" status for Palestine. Only nine countries opposed the move and 41 abstained.

The financial sanction is Israel's second punitive response to the vote. On Friday, it announced a big settlement expansion programme.

An Israeli official said Israel was entitled to deduct the sum from a debt of more than $200m (£125m) owed by the PA to the Israel Electric Corporation. But he conceded that the move was in response to the UN vote, and that it could be repeated next month. "A lot depends on what the Palestinians do or don't do," he said.

The Israeli finance minister, Yuval Steinitz, told Israel Radio: "I do not intend this month to transfer the funds to the Palestinians. In the coming period I intend to use the money to deduct debts the PA owes to the Israel Electric Corporation and other bodies."

A spokeswoman for the PA declined to comment, saying Palestinian officials had not been officially notified of the move. But Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior Palestinian official, said Israel was guilty of "piracy and theft" by refusing to hand over the funds, according to news agency reports.

Israel had been expected to take punitive measures following the UN vote. A Palestinian official said the withholding of tax revenues was an "act of desperation" in the face of overwhelming international support for a Palestinian state.

In the past, Israel has frozen the monthly revenues as a sanction against the PA, resulting in the late payment of salaries for thousands of public servants in the West Bank and Gaza.

Sunday's decision followed the announcement – within hours of the UN vote – of a big settlement expansion programme, including the controversial development of highly sensitive land close to Jerusalem.

On Friday, Israel said it would build 3,000 new homes in settlements across the pre-1967 Green Line. It also said it would push ahead with the development of an area known as E1, which would close off East Jerusalem – the intended future capital of Palestine – from the West Bank. The announcement drew condemnation from the US and Britain. More

 

Palestine: The meaning of a status upgrade

There was a great show of support for the Palestinians as they bid to upgrade their status at the United Nations. But the move was also strongly opposed by Israel and the United States.

After years of long, inconclusive negotiations, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, asked the UN General Assembly to recognise the non-member state of Palestine in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.

Abbas has been leading the campaign to win support for the resolution, and over a dozen European governments have offered him their support.

"We Palestinians are taking the Israelis all the way with us, for the world to recognise Israeli borders of 1967, because Israel never ever admitted its borders. [The bid] is to keep safe and alive what is left of the two-state solution before it is too late, and it's to awaken the Israeli public [asking them] 'how can you cope with an apartheid system with endless occupation?'" - Mahdi Abdel Hadi, Palestinian Academic Society

The non-member observer state falls short of full UN membership. But a successful bid means the Palestinians would be allowed access to the International Criminal Court, where they could seek action against Israel on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Over the past 60 years, there have been many attempts to achieve Palestinian statehood.

In 1947, the partition resolution was adopted by the General Assembly, supporting an independent Jewish State and an independent Arab State; that was rejected by the Arabs.

But In 1974, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) was granted observer status at the UN - which it holds to this day - allowing it to take part in General Assembly sessions, without the right to vote.

Then in 1988, the PLO unilaterally declared a State of Palestine at a meeting in Algeria.

And in 1993 the Oslo Accord was signed in Washington; that created the Palestinian Authority and granted limited autonomy to the Palestinian territories.

In 2003, the so-called Road Map was drafted by the Middle East quartet, stipulating the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005.

"[Palestinians] are trying to impose on Israel something that Israelis cannot accept in terms of Israeli security, and also they are not willing to recognise that on the other side of the border there will be a Jewish state." - Dan Schueftan, University of Haifa

And in September 2011, President Abbas submitted an application to join the UN as a full member state. But the bid failed because of a lack of support in the UN Security Council.

Both Israel and the US have rejected the most recent bid by Palestine to be recognised as a non-member observer state. Danny Ayalon, Israel's deputy foreign minister, said the bid is a "virtual move without any substance", while Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, said it would serve no purpose. .

So, how would a new status at the UN help the Palestinians? How would they use their newfound status? And how would it affect future peace efforts?

 

The Latest Gaza Catastrophe by Richard Falk

Many aspects of the current assault on Gaza pass under the radar screens of world conscience

The media double standards in the West on the new and tragic Israeli escalation of violence directed at Gaza were epitomised by an absurdly partisan New York Times front page headline: "Rockets Target Jerusalem; Israel girds for Gaza Invasion" (NYT, Nov 16, 2012). Decoded somewhat, the message is this: Hamas is the aggressor, and Israel when and if it launches a ground attack on Gaza must expect itself to be further attacked by rockets. This is a stunningly Orwellian re-phrasing of reality.

The true situation is, of course, quite the opposite: Namely, that the defenseless population of Gaza can be assumed now to be acutely fearful of an all out imminent Israeli assault, while it is also true, without minimising the reality of a threat, that some rockets fired from Gaza fell harmlessly (although with admittedly menacing implications) on the outskirts of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. There is such a gross disproportion in the capacity of the two sides to inflict damage and suffering due to Israeli total military dominance as to make perverse this reversal of concerns to what might befall Israeli society if the attack on Gaza further intensifies.

The reliance by Hamas and the various Gaza militias on indiscriminate, even if wildly inaccurate and generally harmless, rockets is a criminal violation of international humanitarian law, but the low number of casualties caused and the minor damage caused, needs to be assessed in the overall context of massive violence inflicted on the Palestinians. The widespread non-Western perception of the new cycle of violence involving Gaza is that it looks like a repetition of Israeli aggression against Gaza in late 2008, early 2009, that similarly fell between the end of American presidential elections and scheduled Israeli parliamentary elections.

Pointing fingers

There is the usual discussion over where to locate responsibility for the initial act in this renewed upsurge violence. Is it some shots fired from Gaza across the border and aimed at an armoured Israeli jeep or was it the targeted killing by an Israeli missile of Ahmed Jabari, leader of the military wing of Hamas, a few days later? Or some other act by one side or the other? Or is it the continuous violence against the people of Gaza arising from the blockade that has been imposed since mid-2007?

The assassination of Jabari came a few days after an informal truce that had been negotiated through the good offices of Egypt, and quite ironically agreed to by none other than Jabari acting on behalf of Hamas. Killing him was clearly intended as a major provocation, disrupting a carefully negotiated effort to avoid another tit-for-tat sequence of violence of the sort that has periodically taken place during the last several years.

An assassination of such a high profile Palestinian political figure as Jabari is not a spontaneous act. It is based on elaborate surveillance over a long period, and is obviously planned well in advance partly with the hope of avoiding collateral damage, and thus limiting unfavourable publicity. Such an extra-judicial killing, although also part and parcel of the new American ethos of drone warfare, remains an unlawful tactic of conflict, denying adversary political leaders separated from combat any opportunity to defend themselves against accusations, and implies a rejection of any disposition to seek a peaceful resolution of a political conflict. It amounts to the imposition of capital punishment without due process, a denial of elementary rights to confront an accuser.

Putting aside the niceties of law, the Israeli leadership knew exactly what it was doing when it broke the truce and assassinated such a prominent Hamas leader, someone generally thought to be second only to the Gaza prime minister, Ismail Haniya. There have been rumours, and veiled threats, for months that the Netanyahu government plans a major assault of Gaza, and the timing of the ongoing attacks seems to coincide with the dynamics of Israeli internal politics, especially the traditional Israeli practice of shoring up the image of toughness of the existing leadership in Tel Aviv as a way of inducing Israeli citizens to feel fearful, yet protected, before casting their ballots. More

 

Israeli Soldiers Breaking The Silence on the Occupation of Palestine

Former Israeli paratrooper Avner Gvaryahu, now an activist with Breaking The Silence explains to Green Left Weekly's Peter Boyle how 850 former Israeli soldiers have given testimony about the gross injustices against the Palestinian people they have witnessed and made to participate in as part of Israel's military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. He was visiting Australia to promote the book "Our Harsh Logic" (Scribe Publications).

History is repeated as the international community turns its back on Gaza

In Gaza today, we are sitting, waiting for the next phase of Israel's offensive. For more than three days now, the attacks have relentlessly continued. The streets are deserted as people are too afraid to move. But still civilians are being killed and injured. The precise number is impossible to know at this stage, as our fieldworkers struggle to document past and current attacks.

Outside the borders of the Gaza Strip, the world watches their television screens. And waits.

We have been here before. Nearly four years ago, Israel launched Operation Cast Lead, a 23 day offensive on the Gaza Strip that placed the civilian population firmly in the eye of the storm. In that offensive, 82 percent of the dead were civilians; 1,179 of international law's so-called "protected persons" were killed as the world looked on.

As a result of Israel's illegal closure of the Gaza Strip - now in place for an unimaginable five years - the destruction caused during Operation Cast Lead is still not fully repaired. As the bombs fall today, they add rubble to rubble; another generation of destruction. Already weakened infrastructure, particularly hospitals, makes it a struggle for people to cope.



After Operation Cast Lead, we believed that the world would respond. It had to. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), and other organisations, prepared countless well-documented cases containing concrete allegations of widespread war crimes perpetrated by Israeli forces. We presented them to, amongst others, the UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, who concluded that Operation Cast Lead was directed at "the people of Gaza as a whole". It held that Israel's policies were premised on a "deliberate policy of disproportionate force" aimed not at the enemy but at the "supporting infrastructure". In practice, this appears to have meant the civilian population.' Based on these conclusions, the Fact Finding Mission recommended that the Security Council refer the situation in Gaza to the International Criminal Court, so that all suspected war criminals could be investigated and, if appropriate, tried and prosecuted.

This was not an unusual conclusion. It was a response to the clear requirements of international law.

For nearly four years, PCHR has fought for the implementation of this recommendation. As an organisation, we represent over 1,400 victims of Operation Cast Lead. These individuals have placed their faith in the rule of law, and in the promise of universal human rights.

Their faith has been met with realpolitik and an international community that is unwilling to live up to its international obligations. The international community has consistently prioritised political considerations above human rights, using peace and security as a pretext. They have turned their backs on the rule of law and the victims.

Today, these same victims, along with the entire population of Gaza, are once more subject to relentless attack. Once again, international law is being disregarded as Israel launches wave after wave of attacks on the Gaza Strip. More

 

Dissecting IDF propaganda: The numbers behind the rocket attacks

In this brief study, I examine the many numbers cited by the Israeli military relating to Gaza rocket attacks into Israel.

To begin, Israeli spokespeople frequently remind the world that a million Israeli citizens are within range of Gaza rockets, twelve thousand of which have been fired into Israel in the last twelve years, inflicting thousands of injuries and several dead.

However, we are rarely told exactly how many people have been killed by these rocket attacks.

Counting the dead

Below is a list of all the fatalities of rocket and mortar attacks fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel in the entire history of these attacks. Throughout the years of rocket attacks into Israel, a total of 26 people have been killed altogether.

Fatalities from rocket and mortar attacks in Israel from the Gaza Strip

Date of attack	Name	Age	Location	Weapon
2004.06.28	Mordechai Yosephov	49	Sderot	Qassam
2004.06.28	Afik Ohion Zehavi	4	Sderot	Qassam
2004.09.29	Yuval Abebeh	4	Sderot	Qassam
2004.09.29	Dorit (Masarat) Benisian	2	Sderot	Qassam
2005.01.15	Ayala-Haya Abukasis	17	Sderot	Qassam
2005.07.15	Dana Gelkowitz	22	Moshav Nativ Ha‘asara	Qassam
2006.03.28	Salam Ziadin*	?	Nahal Oz	Qassam‡
2006.03.28	Khalid Ziadin*	16	Nahal Oz	Qassam‡
2006.11.15	Faina Slutzker	57	Sderot	Qassam
2006.11.21	Yaakov Yaakobov	43	Sderot	Qassam
2007.05.21	Shirel Friedman	32	Sderot	Qassam
2007.05.27	Oshri Oz	36	Sderot	Qassam
2008.02.27	Roni Yihye	47	Sderot	Qassam
2008.05.09	Jimmy Kedoshim	48	Kibbutz Kfar Aza	mortar
2008.05.12	Shuli Katz	70	Moshav Yesha	Qassam
2008.06.05	Amnon Rosenberg	51	Kibbutz Nir-Oz	mortar
2008.12.27	Beber Vaknin	58	Netivot	Qassam
2008.12.29	Lutfi Nasraladin*†	38	IDF base near Nahal Oz	mortar
2008.12.29	Irit Sheetrit	39	Ashdod	Grad
2008.12.29	Hani al Mahdi*	27	Ashkelon	Grad
2010.03.18	Manee Singueanphon*	30	Moshav Nativ Ha‘asara	Qassam
2011.08.20	Yossi Shushan	38	Be’er sheva	Grad
2011.10.29	Moshe Ami	56	Ashkelon	Grad
2012.11.15	Yitzchak Amsalem	24	Kiryat Malachi	rocket
2012.11.15	Mira Sharf	25	Kiryat Malachi	rocket
2012.11.15	Aharon Smadja	49	Kiryat Malachi	rocket
Total fatalities in the history of rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza into Israel: 26
Operation Cast Lead: December 27, 2008–January 18, 2009
Operation Pillar of Cloud: November 14, 2012–

(Refer to the bottom of the page for notes and sources.)

The shaded rows in the table refer to fatalities sustained during Operation Cast Lead (December 27, 2008–January 18, 2009) and Operation Pillar of Cloud(November 14, 2012–).

Note that of the 26 fatalities from rocket and mortar attacks, more than one out of every four deaths occurred during these two operations, which were ostensibly designed to deter rocket attacks. More