Category: War crimes

Israeli Settlements

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz has revealed that roughly 75 per cent of construction of Israeli settlements has been carried out in contravention of Israeli law.  The statistics are taken from a secret database compiled by the Ministry of Defence in order to fight legal challenges against the settlement programmes brought by the Palestinians.  Scandalous indeed.  You’d think that an illegal occupation would at least respect its own bogus laws.

More to the point, neither Haaretz  nor the BBC, which  picks up the story on its website, mention that 100 per cent of the Israeli settlements have been declared illegal by the World Court.

Spain investigates claims of Israeli crimes against humanity

Former Israeli defence minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer and six others are being accused of crimes against humanity – the killing of 15 people, mostly children, in Gaza in 2002 – as a Spanish judge opens preliminary investigations.

A Spanish judge today opened preliminary investigations into claims that a bomb attack on Gaza in 2002 warranted the prosecution of a former Israeli defence minister and six senior military officers for crimes against humanity.

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International Writers and Scholars Endorse Academic Boycott of Israel

International support for the academic boycott of Israel. This time in the Progressive magazine.

We stand in support of the indigenous Palestinian people in Gaza, who are fighting for their survival against one of the most brutal uses of state power in both this century and the last.

We condemn Israel’s recent (December 2008/ January 2009) breaches of international law in the Gaza Strip, which include the bombing of densely-populated neighborhoods, illegal deployment of the chemical white phosphorous, and attacks on schools, ambulances, relief agencies, hospitals, universities, and places of worship. We condemn Israel’s restriction of access to media and aid workers.

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Ceasefire Broken From Day One

The killing and maiming of Palestinians by Israeli forces continues unabated, despite the ‘cease-fire’ which was put in place almost 10 days ago. As always, Israel’s violations of such agreements are burried deep down Orwell’s memory hole. Here is the report from Eva Bartlett:

At 7.30 am Jan. 22, five days after Israeli authorities declared a ‘ceasefire’ following their 22-day air, land and sea bombardment of the Gaza Strip, Israeli gunboats renewed shelling off the Gaza city coast, injuring at least six, including four children.

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Israeli army used flechettes against Gaza civilians

Latest report from Amnesty International’s fact-finding team in Gaza:

A flechette embedded in a wall in a Bedouin villlage in Gaza
A flechette embedded in a wall in a Bedouin villlage in Gaza

Monday January 26: The Israeli army’s use of white phosphorus in densely populated civilian areas of Gaza has captured much of the world’s media interest. However, the Israeli forces also used a variety of other weapons against civilian residential built-up areas throughout the Gaza Strip in the three-week conflict that began on 27 December.

Among these are flechettes – tiny metal darts (4cm long, sharply pointed at the front and with four fins at the rear) that are packed into120mm shells. These shells, generally fired from tanks, explode in the air and scatter some 5,000 to 8,000 flechettes in a conical pattern over an area around 300 metres wide and 100 metres long.

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At the heart of BBC row, the homeless of Gaza

Safaa Salam, 10, with her brother Salman Salam
Safaa Salam, 10, with her brother Salman Salam in the ruins of their family home in the Jabal Rayas area of eastern Gaza.

Peter Beaumont reports from Jabal Rayas, describing the plight of the children of Gaza, whose fate has been, perhaps irredeemably, compromised by the BBC management’s spineless decision not be broadcast the humanitarian appeal.

Safaa Salam is scared and cold. Last night the 10-year-old girl slept in the ruins of her family house in the Jabal Rayas area of eastern Gaza. So did her four-year-old niece Ghavad. It is not so much a ruin as a cave, the top a tented slab of crumbling concrete, cracked and buckling in the middle.

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58 Massacres before 1999

You can hear people saying “Israel’s gone too far this time.” But it isn’t only this time. Large scale massacres have been a central part of Zionist strategy from the start. Here is some information on the preceding massacres. Unfortunately the list stops in 1999, so many recent massacres, including Qana 2 and Jenin, are not included:

Although the Image that Israel distributes about herself is that of an oppressed nation, it is with heavy hearts that we present these crimes that stand for themselves for the brutality of the Israeli Army and the heartlessness of its soldiers who seem to have a thirst for blood. It is for the hope that the world may see a clearer picture that we present these painful facts. It is interesting to notice that today’s media does not dwell on these crimes as they do on the Holocaust. They are reported in the news for a week or two and then swept into the sea of oblivion. Those who attempt to revive the true history of Israel are charged of being anti-Semitic. So with the hope to keep those memories in mind we present this shameful history of  Israel that seems to have found that the role of Goliath is more interesting than that of David.

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Tony Benn Slams the BBC

Tony Benn slams the BBC’s ill-advised decision not to broadcast a Gaza Charity Appeal. He makes the appeal himself.  And kudos to Benn for his refusal to reduce this to a mere humanitarian issue; as he points out, Hamas is the elected government of the Palestinian people.

The BBC refuses to broadcast Gaza charity appeal

The indispensable Media Lens has an important Rapid Response Media Alert. The BBC has already used your license fees to feed you foreign state propaganda, now it also wants you to be complicit in Israeli crimes. Don’t hesitate to register your protest.

Numerous members of the public have written to us expressing their bewilderment at the violence of Israel’s 22-day attack on Gaza killing upwards of 1,300 people and wounding 4,200. To many witnessing the onslaught on their TV screens (especially Al Jazeera) this appeared to be an act of state sadism.

Israeli forces repeatedly bombed schools (including UN schools), medical centres, hospitals, ambulances, UN buildings, power plants, sewage plants, roads, bridges and civilian homes.

On January 15, Helpdoctors.org reported that Al Quds hospital had been “again the target of bombing”. Some 50 patients, 30 in wheelchairs, fled as the burning hospital was “totally destroyed”.

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Alarm Spreads Over Use of Lethal New Weapons

As more news of the brutality of the Israeli invasion comes to light, medical personnel based in Gaza speak of unprecedented suffering inflicted upon the civilian population. Aside from “clear and undeniable” evidence of the use of white phosphorus, according to Amnesty International, Israel is now accused of deploying so-called Dense Inert Metal Explosives (DIME) and other, hitherto unseen, lethal and indiscriminatory weapons of mass destruction.

Eighteen-year-old Mona Al-Ashkar says she did not immediately know the first explosion at the United Nations (UN) school in Beit Lahiya had blown her left leg off. There was smoke, then chaos, then the pain and disbelief set in once she realised it was gone – completely severed by the weapon that hit her.

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