Civilians, medics and investigators talk to the Guardian about allegations of war crimes during Israel's 23-day campaign in Gaza.

The first part focuses on the infamous Israeli unmanned aerial vehicles - the dreaded drones - which caused at least 48 deaths in Gaza during the 23-day offensive.

The second part focuses on three teenage brothers who were taken as human shields by the Israelis and were made to kneel in front of tanks to deter Palestinian resistance attacks.

The third and last part investigates the Israeli military attacks on Palestinian medical staff.

Copy code to embed the video:
<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/3y_12Rf6Bw%2Em4v" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="295" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed>

Israel is Investigating soldier use of Palestinian human shields

Remember the video that showed some IOF using some Palestinian Youths as Human Shields in Nablus? Finaly, Israel is now investigating soldier for this crime. I have no doubt that the soldiers will face no charges or get sentence for such crimes, but I hope that I will be proven wrong.

Palestinians and Israelis have been talking about war crimes such as using Palestinians as human shields for ages. Who can forget this picture? But nothing ever happened and the IOF terrorist live happily ever after.

Side note: Only Euronews showed footage of Israel's incursion into Gaza yesterday... media was probably banned... but it could have REPORTED the news, which was in Haaretz: 15 tanks, helicopters, bulldozers and soldiers entered Gaza...

Sorry, but these guys seems to be living on a different planet. Less than a week ago, they spilled their poison on Jordan. Jordanian government spokesman Nasser Judeh replied:

On Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, Judeh was surprised to hear the HRW asks Jordan to consider thousands of Iraqis as refugees, noting the Agency that concerns with refugees is Higher Commission for Refugees, which can classify the refugee. He indicated that HRW claimed that Jordan puts restriction on visas for Iraqis, the Iraqis, Judeh remarked, basically don’t need visa to enter Jordan but rather they need residence. He elucidated that the information HRW has got is inaccurate and its report is false.

Now, it is the turn of Palestinian people under occupation. The almighty HRW are saying that Palestinian Human Shields are illegal and "Civilians Must Not Be Used to Shield Homes Against Military Attacks." Who said they should? HRW missed the point that Palestinians voluntary went out in the middle of the night to protect their brothers, sisters, neighbors and loved ones, because people like HRW are sitting in their cozy chairs watching Palestinians massacred by the Zionist; doing nothing but writing reports to collect dust!

Here is what International Solidarity Movement replied:

Nonviolent Resistance is not Illegal: HRW Should Retract Statement

On Sunday, Nov. 19, hundreds of Palestinian civilians crowded into the building where the family of Mohammed Baroud and a number of other families live in Jabalya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. Israeli military forces had warned that the building would be attacked. The planned Israeli attack was deterred by this action. Two hours later, the scene was replicated at the family home of Mohammed Nawajeh, with the same results.

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) applauds the people of Jabalya for their courageous and effective use of nonviolent resistance, and we express our full solidarity with their actions, which are positive initiatives in the struggle to defend Palestinian rights. We encourage international volunteers to participate in these actions, as did Father Peter Dougherty and Sister Mary Ellen Gundeck of the Michigan Peace Team.

We note with disappointment that Human Rights Watch (HRW) chose to condemn these actions, suggesting that they could constitute a "war crime." In a November 22, 2006 press release entitled, "OPT: Civilians Must Not Be Used to Shield Homes Against Military Attacks" HRW Middle East Director Sarah Leah Whitson said, "There is no excuse for calling civilians to the scene of a planned attack. Whether or not the home is a legitimate military target, knowingly asking civilians to stand in harm's way is unlawful."

HRW's press release is factually, legally, and morally flawed.

HRW based its statement on contested factual information. HRW claimed that "Palestinian armed groups" and Mohammed Baroud encouraged civilians to gather around the homes. However, while some press accounts mention Baroud's role, numerous other press and participant accounts from Gaza suggest that the mobilizations resulted from calls by civilian leaders and a groundswell of popular anger against Israeli home demolitions.

As just one example, Eyad Bayary, a head nurse at Jabalya Hospital who went to Baroud's home with another twenty of his neighbors, told ISM that he did not hear a call from Baroud asking people to protect his home. He and his neighbors went to support Baroud and his family and to protest the shelling out of their own volition. "I live next to Mr. Baroud's family home. If his home is shelled at best my home would be damaged. My wife is in the six month of her pregnancy. God forbid, a shelling of the house next door could endanger her and the child she is carrying. All our children would be affected. We went to the Baroud family house because we were scared and angry. No one asked us to come."

In addition to this factual weakness, we believe that HRW's position reflects serious errors in the interpretation and application of international humanitarian law (IHL), in two fundamental respects: (1) HRW's position explicitly rejects considering the legitimacy of the target as relevant to the legal analysis; and (2) HRW's position erroneously places the burden of protecting civilian lives on the population being attacked instead of on the belligerents carrying out the attack.

Continue...

According to HRW, "In the case where the object of attack is not a legitimate military target, calling civilians to the scene would still contravene the international humanitarian law imperative for parties to the conflict to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians from the effects of attack." IHL clearly makes target legitimacy central to the determination of lawful vs. unlawful conduct. Protocol I of the Geneva Convention, Article 51(7) provides that "Parties to the conflict shall not direct the movement of the civilian population or individual civilians in order to attempt to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield military operations." Article 52 of the same Protocol makes clear that a civilian home is a civilian object and not a military objective. Even if Mohammed Baroud and Mohammed Nawajeh are military commanders, their families, their family homes and the homes of other families in the same buildings are not military objectives.

Therefore, the Geneva Convention's prohibition on the use of civilians to shield military objectives does not apply to the voluntary gathering of Palestinian civilians to protect civilian objects like the homes of Baroud and Nawajeh from a pending Israeli attack. Rather, Israel's targeting of these homes constitutes a violation of numerous provisions of IHL that proscribe attacks on civilian property, and of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, strictly prohibiting the destruction of property for the purpose of collective punishment.

While IHL places obligations on all parties to a conflict to take "all feasible precautions" to protect civilians from the effects of attack, HRW does not cite support for its claim that encouraging civilians to defend their homes from military strikes constitutes a violation of this imperative. In fact, Protocol I, Article 57 relating to precautions in attack, specifically places the obligation to protect civilians on "those who plan or decide upon an attack." (Protocol I, Art. 57(2)(a)). Furthermore, providing warning does not absolve Israel of its responsibility not to attack civilian objects, nor does it make the civilian objects legitimate military targets.

The error of HRW's interpretation of IHL is even more obvious when we consider that HRW statements like "Civilians Must Not Be Used to Shield Homes Against Military Attacks" and "knowingly asking civilians to stand in harm's way is unlawful" would proscribe many completely legitimate forms of nonviolent resistance in occupied peoples' struggles. The Fourth Geneva Convention and its Additional Protocols were never intended to permit an aggressor to choose his targets at will, while putting the onus on the civilian victims to get out of the way. Nor were these laws created to prevent civilians from exercising their right to defend their property.

The condemnation of nonviolent efforts by civilians to prevent the destruction of civilian homes also represents a failure of moral judgment on the part of HRW. To condemn nonviolent actions in this way is to confuse civil resistance with the forcible use of "human shields" by military combatants, such as those documented by the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem in its November, 2002 report "Human Shield". The report describes Israeli military seizures of Palestinian civilians, forcing them to walk in front of soldiers and sometimes placing them on the hoods of their vehicles to deter attacks against their military personnel. These Israeli military actions are clearly war crimes (though HRW failed to label them as such in its April, 2002 report, "In a Dark Hour: The Use of Civilians during IDF Arrest Operations"). It is a mistake to extend this principle to the courageous voluntary participation of unarmed individuals in mass nonviolent actions in defense of their human rights.

By condemning nonviolent civilian resistance in this way, HRW endangers those practicing it, and undermines the work of other human rights groups and the credibility of HRW itself. ISM calls upon HRW to retract its November 22 press release and to recognize the courage and the legitimacy of the actions of the Palestinian community in Jabalya.

An Israeli military spokesman confirmed that the raid had been called off because of the protest.

"The attack plan was canceled because of the people there. We differentiate between innocent people and terrorists," he said. [Aljazeera]

No they did not! The Palestinians could not be the reason or the force to block the the terrorist army of Israel if they wanted to carry on the raid. Do you want to tell me that they didn't kill innocent civilians before? How graceful they are.

(Ben Heine © Cartoons)

Who killed the Beit Hanoun sleeping families?

Who killed these and these and these and these and these and these and these and these and these and these and these and... all of these innocent civilians, children, women and elders, who killed them?

Who killed Huda's family?

Who killed the civilians in this massacre, and this, and this, and this...?

Who killed Iman?

Who killed prayers in Al-Aqsa Mosque?

Who killed children, women and elders in Sabra and Shatila and Qana?

Who killed the thousands of villagers in Qibya, Safsaf and al-Dawayima, and Kafr Qasim, and...?

Who killed and killed and killed...? Thousands and thousands of innocent Palestinians were killed by the Zionist throughout the history of Palestinian resistance!

Israel always claimed that Palestinian civilians die during Israeli terrorist army operations because they (Palestinians) use civilians as human shields. So, what's new this time? Nothing. It's not because the Palestinian formed a human shield to protect a Palestinian resistance man that Israeli terrorist machine stopped. It's all a PR show and a brainwash to try to cover their recent massacres.

Unfortunately, the mainstream media has a very short memory.

From today news:

An Israeli aircraft has attacked a car carrying two Hamas fighters in Gaza City, wounding at least 10 people.

Hamas said two of its fighters were in the car but escaped unharmed on Sunday. Medical workers said the men were wounded, along with three passersby - two children and an elderly man. [Aljazeera]

So, these two children and the elderly men are not innocent civilians? And what about yesterday's civilians killing? And day before, and day before, and week before...

Yesterday the UN resolution condemned Israeli terrorists and their crimes (156 countries, including the 25-member European Union, voted in favour of the non-binding resolution, introduced by Qatar on behalf of Arab states. Seven - including the US, Israel and Australia - voted against while six abstained). But, so what? Did anyone blink? When did a UN resolution stop Israel from conducting more crimes? Never! In fact in the same day, two Palestinians were killed.

It's shame to watch the world doing nothing but few words of condemnation here and there, but no actions when things relate to Israel.

Ultimately, this world is not controlled by force but by our minds. The world has become a behavior modification laboratory. "Believe what you are told not your common sense or intuition," and this is what Israel is playing well. Gradually, the world is transformed into better slaves by the education system or into slugs or demons by the mass media. The Zionist mass media is nothing but a malevolent occult force that controls the world with lies. They play a great role in this process and in manipulating and suppressing the truth and replacing it with their lies (a.k.a. truth, their truth).

On Sunday over 30 Israeli vehicles, supported by encircling Apache helicopters, invaded the camp. They broke into several homes, turning them into military installations. Israeli soldiers also arrested the 25 year old Palestinian citizen Ahmed Al Issa and two other Palestinians, taking them to unknown locations.

The next morning the children of the refugee camp had had enough and began throwing stones at the Israeli military vehicles, while Israeli soldiers shot at them from the rooftops of homes the soldiers had over taken.

Thursday morning Israeli forces reinvaded the eastern Nablus refugee camp with bulldozers, military jeeps and APCs, while Apache helicopters circle overhead.

The cruelest of the killings in this devastating period was that of two teenagers. Israeli snipers took deadly aim and shot both 17 year old Ahmed Issa and 17 year old Mohammad Al Nator in their necks, immediately killing the boys.

Eyewitnesses reported that they had not participated in any actions in the camp

Sixteen year old Kamal Khalili was shot in his chest with live ammunition at 11:00 this morning in Balata Camp while throwing a stone at Israeli soldiers. The Physicians for Human Rights-Israel reports on Balata Camp and Barta'a enclave and said that IOF injured three Palestinian medical workers in Balata Refugee Camp today. The Israeli army has been waging an incursion into the camp since Sunday this week.

Two of the injured Palestinian medical workers are from the Palestinian Medical Relief Society, a close partner of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel for the past 17 years. Due to army interference their evacuation lasted for over half an hour. Only after intense negotiations were they able to be cleared from the scene.

The third injured Palestinian medical worker, from a local Palestinian medical organization, was removed from the ambulance that was going to transport him to the hospital by Israeli soldiers who took him to Hawara Checkpoint.

Reports from the camp also indicate that medical workers were placed between stone throwers and the Israeli soldiers in what seems to be a use of the "human shield" tactic (have you seen Human Shields before? If not, have a look here). PHR-Israel was amongst other organizations that petitioned the Israeli High Court against the use of this illegal tactic.

About 20 Palestinians were injured today- most of them between the ages of 12 and 22. The Israeli army has reported that two of its soldiers have been injured. Since the start of the incursion eight Palestinians have been killed and over 70 injured. One person is in a state of clinical death and was transferred to Mokassed Hospital today.

Israeli forces are opening fire on ambulances and journalists attempting to work inside the camp. Among the injured is camerman from Nablus TV, Zaid Mashaki.

The nightmare is not over. Palestinian medical sources report that Israeli forces shot a 63 year old taxi driver, Fereh Kuaa, at approximately 3:00 am. Eyewitnesses reported that Israeli forces broke into several houses and buildings in the Al Dahia neighborhood, converting them into military installations.

Now you are telling me that Hamas is terrorist group. What do you call killing 17 years old teenage boys IN THE NECKS and shooting 63 years old Taxi driver and shoting medical works and using them as human shields?

The answer is: STATE TERRORISM. This is the peace loving Israel.

Targeting Nablus and surrounding areas is not a coincidence. If you don't know, Nablus is the Financial capital for the Palestinians. So this goes along with Israel organized plan to destroy all hopes for Hamas to make it possible to run the new government. Embargo, siege, and now destroying all hopes remain.

But that not all. the Israeli Occupation Forces did not stop what it practice best; killing. Here is also last week report on Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory:

Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) Continue Attacks on Palestinian Civilians and Property in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT)

• 5 Palestinians, including two children, were killed by IOF in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
• 42 Palestinian civilians, including 25 children, two women, and an international solidarity activist were wounded by IOF in the West Bank.
• IOF continued to shell Palestinian areas in the Gaza Strip, an infant was seriously injured.
• IOF conducted 31 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank and invaded Nablus and Balata refugee camp.
• Houses were raided and 79 Palestinian civilians, including 26 children, were arrested by IOF.
• 6 houses were transformed by IOF into military sites.
• IOF have continued to impose a total siege on the OPT, especially in the West Bank; the eastern part of the West Bank has been isolated from the remainder of the West Bank; Palestinian civilians aged below 45 were prevented from entering the al-Aqsa Mosque for Friday Prayers; and IOF arrested 11 Palestinian civilians, including 5 children and a girl, at checkpoints in the West Bank.
• IOF have continued to construct the Annexation Wall in the West Bank; IOF plan to construct a section of the Wall to the east of Hebron; IOF used force against Palestinian civilians demonstrating against the construction of the Wall; IOF have continued to imposed severe restrictions on movement in Palestinian communities located near the Wall; and IOF demolished a house in Deir al-Ghosoun village near Tulkarm.

This is what the Israeli government and its occupying forces are doing in the Holy Land. Enjoy your day!

Israel's defense minister Shaul Mofaz has ordered the army's top brass to appeal against a supreme court ruling last week that banned the military's use of human shields. Mofaz is prepared to make a personal appeal for the ruling to be overturned, arguing that alternative methods in arrest operations such as more widespread use of bulldozers would endanger the lives not only of Israeli soldiers but also of Palestinian civilians.

The supreme court last week formally banned the practice that it said violated international law.