War Crimes Against Children : UN Reports

Gaza Blitz

Crimes committed against children by Israel and Palestinian militant groups are highlighted by the UN.

Jerusalem, 6 February 2009 – “Despite the Gaza ceasefires, children continue to suffer and remain in a precarious state of insecurity”, stated Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy, Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, after her four-day visit to the occupied Palestinian territory and southern Israel. She was in the region to assess first hand the situation of children.

In Gaza, where 56% of the population is below 18 years old, grave violations against children were committed such as killing and maiming, and denial of humanitarian access. During the recent hostilities, there were no safe spaces for children and the crossings out of Gaza were, and remain, virtually sealed.

One third of Palestinian casualties are reported to be children. Many children have witnessed unspeakable violence against their family members and are severely distressed. The extensive destruction to homes, hospitals, schools and power, water and sanitation networks also has a devastating impact on children. The damage or destruction of hospitals and schools including the American International School, Palestinian Authority-administered, and UNRWA schools – considered protected spaces — was particularly shocking. “Reconstructing the schools and ensuring that children can go back to their classrooms and feel secure again is essential to their recovery,” said Ms. Coomaraswamy.

“There is no doubt that children live in constant fear of missile attacks in Southern Israel. The need for psycho-social support has increased recently,” she said on her visit to Ashkelon. “The indiscriminate firing of rockets into civilian areas is clearly a grave violation of international humanitarian law and should not be neglected simply because they are lower in scale”, she added. The Special Representative urged Hamas and other affiliated groups to immediately stop the rocket attacks on Israel, stating that this only feeds the cycle of violence.

In both Gaza and southern Israel, children expressed anger and despair as a manifestation of their desire for accountability. It is imperative that independent and impartial investigations are conducted and justice is done. The lack of accountability only contributes to a sense of impunity. “The children want answers and the international community must deliver”, declared the Special Representative.

Children in Gaza are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, including the restoration of basic services and the immediate reconstruction of schools and hospitals. “Rehabilitation services for the disabled and psycho-social support programs for the tens of thousands in distress are critical. Education is a basic right, an emergency need and a development imperative. It must be prioritized in any emergency response,” said the Special Representative.

Ms. Coomaraswamy reiterated calls by the international community for Israel to open all crossings for regular, sufficient and facilitated humanitarian access and said the amount and kinds of supplies allowed into Gaza must be significantly expanded for any real improvement to occur. The Special Representative emphasized that humanitarian agencies must not be hampered in assisting the population and their workers authorized easy access into Gaza. The Special Representative stated that Hamas must respect that humanitarian aid cannot be diverted.

“Even though they bear the brunt of the conflict, children remain strong advocates for peace,” said Ms. Coomaraswamy. “Every child has the right to live in safety and security. Children from the region have suffered enough. They deserve a better future,” she concluded.

Gaza childFurther UN report:

NEW YORK, USA, 5 February 2008 – The UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy, is in Gaza and southern Israel this week to assess the situation of children and advocate for their protection.

In Gaza, Ms. Coomaraswamy, accompanied by a team from UNICEF, visited a community centre, a school and a hospital – all in the north, in and around Gaza City. She repeated calls for the territory’s borders to be opened and access by humanitarian aid organizations to be expanded.

“The children want answers and the international community must deliver,” declared Ms. Coomaraswamy.

Losses on both sides

During her four-day stay in the region Ms. Coomaraswamy also met with residents in the Israeli town of Ashkelon, which suffered from rocket attacks fired from Gaza.

She said that children on both sides of the border had expressed anger, despair and a need for accountability.

At a school that Ms. Coomaraswamy visited in Zaitoun, a neighborhood east of Gaza City, Almaza Hilmi Al Samuni, 13, was attending a counselling session held by a UNICEF partner organization, the Palestinian Centre for Democracy and Conflict Resolution. Almaza said she wanted the Special Representative to meet the children who, like herself, had lost their mothers.

“They died right before my eyes. There was nothing I could do to save them,” she said of her family members.

Ms. Coomaraswamy noted that Israeli children were also still living in fear, and called for an end to the indiscriminate firing of rockets into civilian areas.

Education as a basic right

In Beit Lahiya, Gaza, Ms. Coomaraswamy visited the Omar Ben Al-Kathab school – which is now operating on double shifts to accommodate an additional 400 students from a nearby school that sustained heavy damage in the recent violence.

More than 160 schools across Gaza were damaged during the conflict. All UN Relief and Works Agency schools were reopened on 24 January after being closed for a month.

“Reconstructing the schools and ensuring that children can go back to their classrooms and feel secure again is essential to their recovery,” said Ms. Coomaraswamy. “Education is a basic right, an emergency need and a development imperative. It must be prioritized in any emergency response.”

UNICEF is providing essential education equipment and materials, including School-in-a-Box kits, pens, pencils and exercise books, recreational kits, and math and science kits for children in all six districts of Gaza.

Creating a protective environment

Even before the recent conflict, the children of Gaza suffered from years of conflict, blockade, lack of adequate social services, and poverty. Coping mechanisms of communities had already been eroded prior to the conflict. Access to basic needs and the creation of a sense of security and a safe environment is essential for the well-being of children.

“UNICEF is calling for regular, sufficient and facilitated access of humanitarian goods and aid workers into Gaza,” said UNICEF’s Representative in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Patricia McPhillips, who accompanied Ms. Coomaraswamy during the mission. “This includes educational and recreational supplies … to provide a sense of normalcy for children who have experienced severe levels of distress.”

The Special Representative is mandated by the UN General Assembly as an independent advocate for children in armed conflict. UNICEF is a leading member of the international coordination group working to monitor and report on grave violations of child rights in conflict situations.

410 children killed by Israel in Gaza

Anthony Cordesman from the Centre for Strategic & International Studies releases a draft report claiming no war crimes were committed by Israel in Gaza. His report is sourced mainly from IDF and other Israeli sources and ignores political factors leading up to the conflict including the two year siege on Gaza and the 60 year history of Israeli brutality and occupation.

Israeli War Crimes & Elections Update

Gaza war crimes

George Bisharat publishes an excellent article in the Seattle Times, insisting that Israel must be held accountable for its war crimes:

“THE boss has lost it,” many Israeli military and political officials, and people on the street, were reportedly joking after their army’s recent devastation of the Gaza Strip. As Israeli journalist Uri Avnery observed, the jest means that: ” … in order to deter our enemies, we must behave like madmen, go on the rampage, kill and destroy mercilessly.”

In fact, the “boss has lost it” is an unselfconscious admission of policies that violate international law, and could at some point be used against Israeli leaders in a criminal prosecution.

Evidence suggests that Israel may have committed at least seven serious offenses during its Gaza invasion: launching a war of aggression (because Israel itself triggered the breakdown of a six-month truce, and therefore did not have a valid claim of self-defense); deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure; deliberate killings of civilians; collective punishment; illegal use of weapons, including white phosphorous; preventing care to the wounded; and disproportionate use of force.

These constitute grave breaches of customary and conventional international law, and some amount to war crimes. Hamas’ indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israeli civilians were also war crimes, but did not justify Israel’s violations.

What is the likelihood that Israel leaders faced with allegations of war crimes will ever be investigated and brought to justice?

Bisharat is not confident of any international court being able to try the Israeli war criminals and suggests it is civil action which may have the most success in conditioning Israel’s sociopathic behaviour.

Thus, perhaps the “court of last resort” is that of international civil society, whose tools for nonviolent enforcement include boycotts, divestment and sanctions. That route, once so effective in helping to end apartheid in Africa, offers a powerful model for those seeking justice in Israel/Palestine today. Israel is both sensitive to Western opinion and dependent on trade and would likely respond to ostracism.

The UN’s John Ging points out the continuing misery that Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza is causing, whilst reprimanding the Hamas police for seizing aid from UNWRA.

John Ging, the director of operations for the United Nations refugee agency in Gaza, said Thursday that Israel’s blockade was creating growing misery there by choking off basic humanitarian supplies like food, medicine, clothes and blankets as well as school supplies.

He also criticized the leadership of Hamas for letting its police force run wild, attacking a distribution center for the needy to cart off supplies.

“We are neither getting in the volume nor the range of supplies that we need here,” Mr. Ging told reporters at the United Nations, speaking via video link-up from Gaza. “This is creating a lot of misery among the people.”

In one example, Mr. Ging said that the teachers in the schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency had worked throughout the three-week Israeli bombardment that ended Jan. 18 to create a new human rights curriculum. But because Israel was blocking paper supplies, the textbooks and workbooks could not be printed, so some 60 percent of the children in United Nations schools lack books.

There’s pertinent discussion on keeping the borders of Gaza open with Egypt at the Jerusalem post.

In the West Bank, an Israeli court has decided to permit the destruction of yet another Palestinian village situated on Palestinian land, for the benefit of a neighbouring illegal Israeli settlement.

About 25 Palestinian families would be forced to leave their homes and agricultural lands in the village of Khirbet Tana, located within the territory of the Beit Furik town, east of Nablus, after the Israeli high court rejected the objection made by human rights organizations on behalf of the families.

Gaza child

Racism in Israeli society is highlighted with the rise of Lieberman.

Arab Knesset member Ahmed Tibi has warned that Lieberman’s rising popularity reflects a dangerous trend.

“We are talking about a pure and obvious fascist phenomena invading the Israeli society,” Tibi said. “During the last years, racism became mainstream in the Israeli society.”

Meantime, Abbas meets with Gordon Brown whose platitudes are empty without the support of the world’s other hegemon, the US. Abbas also takes another counter-productive stab at Hamas.

The international community must make the reconstruction of Gaza a top priority, Gordon Brown has said.

Speaking after meeting Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, Mr Brown said he had urged Israeli PM Ehud Olmert to grant aid agencies full access to Gaza.

He also said it was vital that the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas remained in place.

Mr Abbas accused Israel of “dreadful aggression” in Gaza but said there was no alternative to the peace process.

Gordon Brown said the UK had trebled its humanitarian aid to Gaza as a result of the recent conflict in which more than a thousand Palestinians, including 300 children, died.

He said it was in Israel’s interest as well as that of the international community that aid agencies had unrestricted access to Gaza to help those in need.

“We must do everything we can to help rebuild Gaza and to provide humanitarian aid to families whose lives have been shattered,” he said in Downing Street.

“We must help rebuild Gaza’s economy to give hope that there can be a true peace dividend.”

Countries in the region must do more to stop arms smuggling into Gaza while dialogue between different Palestinian groups must be stepped up to try and bring about a reconciliation, he said.

Progress in peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians was a “top priority” for the UK and world leaders must focus on the search for a lasting peace in the region with “renewed urgency”, Mr Brown added.

Mr Abbas said the cost of rebuilding Gaza would be close to $15bn (£10.2bn) and the “world must keep sending aid”.

The Palestinian Authority, which he heads, has said it will donate $600m (£408.8m) towards reconstruction in Gaza.

He accused Israel of seeking to “deepen divisions” between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas through its campaign in Gaza, which Israel says was provoked by Hamas rocket attacks.

But he also attacked Hamas for perpetrating what he called “a revolution” in Gaza.

However, he called for Palestinian unity and for the resumption of peace talks with Israel on the basis of approved UN resolutions.

“We believe that there are no alternatives to peace in the Middle East,” he said. “We remain committed to achieving peace.”

Israel’s War on Gaza – The Aftermath

George Mitchell is to return to the region within weeks – Hillary Clinton says “This is the first of what will be an ongoing high level of engagement by Senator Mitchell”.

Clinton is completely and unrealistically intransigent on negotiating with Hamas, thus showing she backs the Zionist murderers and land thieves to the hilt.

How will the Palestinians work around the American/Zionist position?

Abbas, whom Hamas do not recognise as legitimate as his term expired on January 9, is in Europe and is touting the formation of a national unity government, which will include Hamas.

The French foreign minister said: “The president and I talked about the Palestinian reconciliation and that is a major issue, that would leave open the possibility to find an agreement to work out a Palestinian unity government to be put in place.

“First of all, in Gaza, the gates must be opened. The checkpoints must be opened. This is not sufficiently the case right now.”

Nour Odeh, Al Jazeera’s Palestinian West Bank correspondent, said that Abbas “wants European assurances that they will deal with a Palestinian government of national unity that will include Hamas, no doubt, if and when that government is formed”.

“In 2007, the Europeans did not agree to deal with a government of national unity headed by Hamas. So Abbas does not want a repeat of that,” she said.

“He is telling the Europeans that it is simply unacceptable for them to adopt that same position because it literally jeopardises the future of Palestinians and their aspirations to unite.”

Reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas would be predicated on “two essential principles”, Abbas said.

They are “a national unity government whose formation will not lead to a blockade [and] a national unity government that considers itself bound by international legality and previous agreements,” he said.

“If Palestinian reconciliation is achieved, if the US administration is ready for work and the Israeli government is formed in a short period, I believe that the conditions would make it possible for the political process.”

While in Paris, Abbas also met Sarkozy, the French president, and Bernard Accoyer, the president of the lower house of France’s parliament.

If Hamas is successful in negotiating the opening of the Gaza concentration camp doors, and if they become amenable to forming a ‘unity’ government, the Euros might become sympathetic. Even so, my prediction going on past history is that Israel and its puppy dog America will find some new excuse to avoid just settlement with the Palestinian people.

Some sad pictures and commentary about the destruction of the beautiful Islamic University of Gaza demanded my attention today. Israel’s despicable obliteration of places of education is always excused, yet the metaphor of its actions speaks louder than its propaganda.

Comments I like include:

That’s what happens when you hide terrorists in your school library.

I’ve learned now that Terrorism just means “fighting for your homes against the imperials”

I watched Star Wars. I know who’s side I’m on.

The Rebel Alliance.

Obviously, the problem is all that worthless hand-me-down stuff they get from the US. Must be faulty equipment. Look at the track record. They keep trying to kill “terrorists” and it keeps hitting schools, mosques, hospitals, UN buildings, small children. Clearly, the equipment is to blame — otherwise, one could never explain 1) why it happens ALL the time, 2) why a group of ragged, starving “terrorists” can kick the butts of the 3rd strongest military in the world and 3) the US has the same problem in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Clearly the answer is for Israel to IMMEDIATELY send back all defective product, refuse further equipment from the US, refuse all aid from the US (don’t want to be pressured into using that money to buy any defective US equipment). I firmly believe that if Israel bought its OWN weapons with its OWN money, the problem would be solved.

Such an easy solution … wonder why Obama doesn’t push that one. He could go down in history as the man who solved the middle east crisis.

Puppet story of the day – the BBC is slavishly repeating the dictatorial press release of the Israeli Foreign Ministry reported in Haaretz imposing sanctions on Al Jazeera staff based in Israel. ‘Fascists’ is the appropriate terminology for those limiting the freedom of the press – apparently the BBC is heading down the same track, adding insult to injury after its management’s refusal to broadcast the DEC humanitarian appeal for Gaza.

The government will impose sanctions on Israel-based employees of the Al Jazeera network in response to the closure last month of the Israeli trade office in Qatar, which hosts and funds the network. Qatar had closed the office in opposition to Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Following the closure, the Foreign Ministry, in conjunction with the newly-formed national information directorate in the Prime Minister’s Office, considered declaring the station a hostile entity and closing its offices in Israel. After submitting the idea to legal review, however, concerns emerged it would not be permitted by the High Court of Justice.

Instead, it chose to limit the network’s activity in Israel and the Palestinian Authority. First, Israel will not renew the visas of Al Jazeera’s non-Israeli employees or grant visas to new employees. Second, station representatives will have reduced accessibility to government and military bodies, and will not be allowed into briefings or press conferences.

Rafahkid examines a war crime carried out by Israel since the supposed Israeli unilateral truce:

Israeli armed forces opened fire on a group of Human Rights Workers (HRWs) and civilians in the Beit Hannoun area of the Gaza Strip on Thursday 29th January. International HRWs were accompanying residents of Beit Hannoun, in the far north of the Gaza Strip, to their homes, in order to salvage belongings from the rubble, after the homes were bulldozed by Israeli forces during the Israeli war on Gaza.

One Palestinian family, the Tarrabin family, were anxious to try to retrieve important items, such as identity cards; cash; and clothes, that Israeli soldiers prevented them from taking with them when they were evicted moments before their home was destroyed. Residents had been further prevented from returning to their homes, which lie in close proximity to the Green Line, by Israeli military firing upon them whenever they attempted to enter the area. Families were advised by soldiers, upon being evicted from their homes, that the area had been declared a “Closed Military Zone”.

Preliminary Gaza War Crimes Investigation by Amnesty International

Since the end of Israel’s major attack on Gaza, the killer state continues its incursions and outrages.

From Steve Lendman:

For the week ending January 28th, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) reported continued Gaza and West Bank incursions and attacks:

— the IDF shot and killed a Gaza farmer on his land;

— 17 Gaza and West Bank Palestinians, including four children and two journalists, were wounded;

— 32 West Bank incursions were conducted;

— 64 West Bank civilians, including 15 children, were arrested;

— a private West Bank home near Bethlehem was seized as a military site;

— Gaza remains under siege and total isolation; conditions overall keep deteriorating;

— two Jerusalem homes were demolished; 53 civilians were left homeless; and Israel continues Judaizing Jerusalem through repeated land seizures.

The same pattern repeats daily, and reports indicate more American and EU complicity. The US Navy patrols the Red Sea to prevent weapons “smuggling,” and Army Corps of Engineers are on the Egyptian – Gaza border to locate tunnels and destroy them. EU nations will monitor Rafah and perhaps other Gaza – Egypt border crossings, and France, Britain and other European countries offered naval vessel patrol help in the Red Sea.

For the satraps of America and Europe, Palestinian lives are unworthy of defence compared to the need for the monster landthieving Israeli state to ‘defend itself’.

Wallowing in fascist depravity, Israel, more specifically Tipsy Livni has now sanctioned Al Jazeera’s Israeli news service.

Following the closure, the Foreign Ministry, in conjunction with the newly-formed national information directorate in the Prime Minister’s Office, considered declaring the station a hostile entity and closing its offices in Israel. After submitting the idea to legal review, however, concerns emerged it would not be permitted by the High Court of Justice.

Instead, it chose to limit the network’s activity in Israel and the Palestinian Authority. First, Israel will not renew the visas of Al Jazeera’s non-Israeli employees or grant visas to new employees. Second, station representatives will have reduced accessibility to government and military bodies, and will not be allowed into briefings or press conferences.

Third, the network will have access to only three official spokespeople – those of the Prime Minister’s Office, Foreign Ministry and the Israel Defense Forces. The information directorate has also instructed Knesset members and ministers not to grant interviews or otherwise cooperate with Al Jazeera, but this is a non-binding instruction which lawmakers may apply at their discretion.

“Israel believes in freedom of the press and in the public’s right to know,” a Foreign Ministry official said Monday. “This is a rearrangement of relations between Israel and the Al Jazeera network in light of the present situation.”

Pardon me while I puke at the hypocrisy above.

Run, war criminals, run! Col. Geva Rapp who was involved in Operation Cast Lead flees Britain in fear of arrest for war crimes.

Col. (res.) Geva Rapp had arrived in London three days before for appearances in which he was to explain Israel’s position and refute media representations of the hostilities.

His trip had been cleared by Israeli security services.

On Thursday night, after news of his visit reached pro-Palestinian groups, some 80 protesters demonstrated outside the offices of the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) in central London, where Rapp was scheduled to speak.

Calling for police to arrest him, the protesters blocked public pathways, while one scaled the building’s walls. Police made several arrests.

The event was cancelled and the decision was made for Rapp to return to Israel out of fear of a universal jurisdiction arrest warrant for alleged war crimes.

The International Herald Tribune relates the story of the people of Atatra, bombarded by Israel’s vicious and insane militia.

Palestinians describe Israeli military actions as a massacre and Israelis attribute civilian casualties to a Hamas policy of hiding behind its people.

So when disaster struck at the Abu Halima house on Sunday, many did the only thing they thought might save them: They got on the phone with their Israeli friends.

As the sun set and the bodies burned, a crowd of panicked villagers waited as two farmers made frantic phone calls to merchants on the other side of the border. “There was no one I didn’t call,” one of them said.

Forty to 50 houses were destroyed.

But when the platoon of Captain Y. took over the neighborhood where the Ghanem family lived, it blew up their house without going inside, he made clear in an interview. A search of it two weeks later by a Times correspondent joined by Chris Cobb-Smith, a 20-year veteran of the British Army and weapons consultant for Amnesty International, showed no evidence of explosive material or of a secondary blast.

So why was the house destroyed?

“We had advance intelligence that there were bombs inside the house,” said Captain Y., in the phone interview. “We looked inside from the doorway and saw things that made us suspicious. I didn’t want to risk the lives of my men. We ordered the house destroyed.”

For the Ghanem family’s 23-year-old son, Bakr, the act will not easily be forgotten.

“A house is something physical but also something in your heart,” he said, as he stood outside his collapsed home, taken over by cats and putrid odors. “The place in our heart has also been injured. There can be no peace after this.”

Many here believe that the Israelis feel the same about them and that they were treated with the suspicion and contempt of would-be fighters. That might help explain what happened, they say, when Omar Abu Halima and his two teenage cousins tried to take the burned body of his baby sister and two other badly burned girls to the hospital on Sunday.

The boys were hauling the girls and six others on a tractor, when, according to several accounts from villagers, Israeli soldiers told them to stop. According to their accounts, they got down, put their hands up, and suddenly rounds were fired, killing two of the teenagers: Matar Abu Halima, 18, and Muhamed Hekmet, 17.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said that soldiers reported that the two were armed and firing. Villagers strongly deny that. The tractor that villagers say was carrying the group is riddled with 36 bullet holes.

The question of how Israel handled civilians in this war has become a matter of keen controversy. Human rights groups are crisscrossing Gaza documenting what they believe will form the basis of war crime proceedings aimed at demonstrating that Israel used disproportionate force.

Did Israel use “cancer bombs” in recent Gaza attack? – podcast exploring weaponry used by Israel against the civilian population of Gaza.