How Israel put Gaza civilians in firing line

[Scurrilous]

Military chiefs were warned that change of safety margin for gunners risked killing the innocent

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1945815,00.html

<snip>

"Israeli military commanders drastically reduced the 'safety' margins that separate artillery targets from the built-up civilian areas of Gaza earlier this year, despite being warned that the new policy risked increasing Palestinian civilian deaths and injuries, The Observer can reveal.

The warning, delivered in Israel's high court by six human rights groups, came after the Israeli Defence Force reduced the so-called 'safety range' in Gaza from a 300-metre separation from built-up areas to just 100 metres - within the kill radius of its 155mm high-explosive shells, generally regarded as being between 50 and 150 metres.

Disclosure of the new shelling policy, which went largely unnoted at the time, has emerged in international outcry over the latest artillery incident by Israeli gunners shelling Gaza - the killing of 19 members of an extended family in the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun. It was the highest Palestinian civilian toll in a single incident since the current conflict erupted in September 2000. The deaths were caused when what witnesses described as a volley of tank shells hit a built-up civilian area.

The revelation follows reports that the shelling of Gaza has continued despite the recent recognition by senior Israeli military officers, including the head of the IDF's Southern Command, that indirect artillery fire (ie, firing without seeing the target) was largely pointless in countering Palestinian rocket fire."


11 Apr. 2006: Israel bears legal responsibility for the death of a girl in Gaza

<snip>

"Yesterday the Israeli military fired a shell that hit the house of the Ghiben family in the town of Beit Lahya in the northern Gaza Strip. Hadil, a seven-year old girl, was killed, and twelve people were injured, including Hadil's pregnant mother Sfia Ghiben, who was seriously injured.

The shelling occurred as part of Israel's policy during the past few months to shell "launching sites" from which Qassam rockets are fired at Israeli communities. Often these sites are located in residential neighborhoods that are put at risk by Israeli shelling.

According to media reports, the Israeli military has even decided to reduce the "safety zone" that is intended to prevent or limit the danger to residential areas. This zone will reportedly be reduced from 300 to 100 meters. Artillery shells are not accurate weapons, and reducing the safety zone will endanger many more civilians. A senior military officer said of this decision and the killing of Hadil Ghiben, "There is no guarantee that additional civilians will not be hurt in future attacks.

International humanitarian law prohibits attacks from within or near densely populated areas, and prohibits using civilians as "human shields." These prohibitions are intended to prevent harm to civilians as a result of counterattacks. Palestinian organizations that attack Israel from within or near such residential areas are violating these prohibitions and demonstrating indifference to the wellbeing of civilians."

<snip>

"At the same time, according to international humanitarian law, this violation does not grant permission to the military to treat areas from which shelling originates as a legitimate military target. The Basic Rule of the laws of war obligates parties to a conflict to direct their operations only at military objectives, to take all feasible precautions to avoid harming civilians, and to avoid actions that are likely to cause "incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof" which is "excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated". Therefore, the official response of the military that "responsibility rests first of all with the civilians themselves" is both appalling and without any legal foundation."

http://www.btselem.org/English/Firearms/20060411_Shell_Kills_Gaza_Girl.asp

[Scurrilous]

1. No one is guilty in Israel (Gideon Levy)

<snip>

"Nineteen inhabitants of Beit Hanun were killed with malice aforethought. There is no other way of describing the circumstances of their killing. Someone who throws burning matches into a forest can't claim he didn't mean to set it on fire, and anyone who bombards residential neighborhoods with artillery can't claim he didn't mean to kill innocent inhabitants.

Therefore it takes considerable gall and cynicism to dare to claim that the Israel Defense Forces did not intend to kill inhabitants of Beit Hanun. Even if there was a glitch in the balancing of the aiming mechanism or in a component of the radar, a mistake in the input of the data or a human error, the overwhelming, crucial, shocking fact is that the IDF bombards helpless civilians. Even shells that are supposedly aimed 200 meters from houses, into "open areas," are intended to kill, and they do kill. In this respect, nothing new happened on Wednesday morning in Gaza: The IDF has been behaving like this for months now.

But this isn't just a matter of "the IDF," "the government" or "Israel" bearing the responsibility. It must be said explicitly: The blame rests directly on people who hold official positions, flesh-and-blood human beings, and they must pay the price of their criminal responsibility for needless killing. Attorney Avigdor Klagsbald caused the death of a woman and her child without anyone imagining that he intended to hit them, but nevertheless he is sitting in prison. And what about the killers of women and children in Beit Hanun? Will they all be absolved? Will no one be tried? Will no one even be reprimanded and shunned?"

<snip>

"No one is guilty in Israel. There is never anyone guilty in Israel. The prime minister who is responsible for the brutal policy toward the Palestinians, the defense minister who knew about and approved the bombardments, the chief of staff, the chief of command and the commander of the division who gave the orders to bombard - not one of them is guilty. They will continue with the work of killing as though nothing has happened: The sun shone, the system flourished and the ritual slaughterer slaughtered. They will continue to pursue the routine of their daily lives, accepted in society like anyone else, and remain in their posts despite the blood on their hands."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/786549.html

[msmcghee]

2. Gideon Levy says . . .

"Nineteen inhabitants of Beit Hanun were killed with malice aforethought. There is no other way of describing the circumstances of their killing. Someone who throws burning matches into a forest can't claim he didn't mean to set it on fire, and anyone who bombards residential neighborhoods with artillery can't claim he didn't mean to kill innocent inhabitants."

Yes, but someone starting a fire in the forest because his family is in danger of freezing to death would be forgiven by most sane observers - even if that fire unintentionally burns down a few trees.

Levy's usual overblown rhetoric does nothing but expose him as a bat-shit crazy anti-Israel idiot. I hope he keeps it up.

The world is getting tired of the old complaint, "Look at those mean Israelis who keep trying to stop me from killing their kids. Can no-one do anything. Oh the humanity".

Besides, according to PA clerics, those dead civilians are now partying with their 72 virgins and have been elevated 100 levels in paradise, each level being the equivalent of the difference between heaven and earth.

(My comments in no way are meant to demean the deaths of innocent civilians or mock them. I am mocking the PA society that condones the missiles being fired daily into Israel - yet takes no responsibility for the deaths of their own people when Israel tries to stop them.)

http://www.pmw.org.il/

Click on the article in the RH column: "PA grants religious status
to suicide terror".

[breakaleg]

3. I think this piece reflects the views of the majority here. I wonder why

it's so seldom heard.

[msmcghee]

4. Because every time you express it . .

. . one of us asks you to defend it logically.

IMO, you're getting tired of the constant embarrassment of having this view exposed as the cheap rhetoric that it is - with no logical foundation that can be defended.

You asked.

[pelsar]

11. you forgot to add....

then when "they are asked to defend it logically"...the post then comes to a "dead end".....which also explains why its not heard very much

[Scurrilous]

5. I voted for a war criminal (Bradley Burston)

<snip>

"They say that confession is good for the stricken soul. So here's mine:

I voted for a war criminal.

I didn't know it at the time. My intentions were sound. I wanted a better life for the Israelis who had it the worst. I wanted a better life for the Palestinians, who had it worse than anyone.

I weighed the options, examined the alternatives. I had met Amir Peretz when he was still mayor of this town that no one had heard of, Sderot. He was socially conscious, savvy, energetic, courageous, responsive to his constituents, true to his ideals."

<snip>


"I considered with care. Like the crew of the IDF self-propelled howitzer ordered to fire at the site of a Qassam launch, an otherwise deserted orange grove in northern Gaza. A safe distance from the houses in adjacent Beit Hanun. Or so they believed.

The crewmen checked before they acted. Their intentions were sound. They had no reason to doubt that the information they had received was reliable. They had no reason to fear that they were about to kill 19 people in a matter of seconds, some of them children still asleep in their beds.

I made it possible. I and all the others who took the ballot with the word Emet (Truth) written on it, and dropped it in the slot. I and all the others who believed Amir Peretz. We gave the go to the 155 mm shells. We killed those kids."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/786815.html

[IntiRaymi]

6. In artillery, responsibility is diffuse.

But, the brutality inherent in aiming a 155 MM Howitzer at civilians, after having dropped the safe radius to within the accepted kill radius of the round (50-100 meters), is obvious. There is an institutional recklesness in all this.

[Scurrilous]

7. U.N. council to hold 3rd Israel session

<snip>

"The new U.N. Human Rights Council said it will hold a third special session Wednesday on Israel, focusing on alleged rights abuses in Gaza.

The council, created earlier this year to replace the highly politicized and much-maligned U.N. Human Rights Commission, has drawn fire from the United States for spending a great deal of time criticizing Israel. The U.S. is not a member of the body.

This week's meeting in Geneva was requested by Bahrain and Pakistan on behalf of Arab and Muslim groups "to consider and take action on the gross human rights violations emanating from Israeli military incursions" in Gaza, the council said in a statement on Monday."

<snip>

"The U.N. top rights watchdog, which took over from the former Human Rights Commission in June, held two special sessions this summer to discuss an earlier Israeli offensive in Gaza and the Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon."

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1103AP_UN_Israel_Rights.html

[bemildred]

8. It's a problem not being a member.

Makes it hard to shut them up or exert any influence on their activities.

[Scurrilous]

9. In one word, massacre... —Uri Avnery

<snip>

"“THANK GOD for the American elections,” Israeli ministers and generals sighed with relief. They were not rejoicing at the kick the American people delivered to George W Bush’s ass this week. They love Bush, after all.

But more important than the humbling of Bush is the fact that the news from America pushed aside the terrible reports from Beit Hanoun. Instead of making the headlines, they were relegated to the bottom of the page. The first revolutionary act is to call things by their true names, Rosa Luxemburg said. So how to call what happened in Beit Hanoun?

“Accident” said a pretty anchorwoman on one of the TV news programmes. “Tragedy”, said her lovely colleague on another channel. A third one, no less attractive, wavered between “event”, “mistake” and “incident”. It was indeed an accident, a tragedy, an event and an incident. But most of all it was a massacre. M-a-s-s-a-c-r-e.

The word “accident” suggests something for which no one is to blame — like being struck by lightning. A tragedy is a sad event or situation, like that of the New Orleans inhabitants after the disaster. The event in Beit Hanoun was sad indeed, but not an act of God — it was an act decided upon and carried out by human beings."

more

[pelsar]

10. SILENCE.......

shhh no one would dare answer such basic questions that the citizens of sederot as well as the citizens of northern israel are asking.....why are they trying to kill us?

we moved back to the infamous 67 line....yet they're still trying to kill us everywhere we go, in our schools in our homes..just as it was pre 67.

SHHHH
dont ask these wonderful "humanitarians" what should we do...what should the IDF do? what should the israeli govt do to stop the kassams?....we left gaza, the gazans had access to egypt....yet they still try to kill us.

Dont ask....because they wont answer........they dont have answer....they just prefer that we sit in our homes and let the kassams fall where they may.....funny how it reminds us of the progroms of europe, where we did just that.....

[breakaleg]

12. " According to the Israeli saying: If force doesn’t work, use more force."

What a brilliant strategy this is. I wonder who thought of it?

[pelsar]

13. yes thats one of our sayings..

we also have another one:

talking is better than fighting....we got lots......my favorite one however is "if you dont understand, ask" (and the addition: there are no stuiped questions)

and i've got my own that came from the DU: if you cant answer questions concerning your political stand, its probably closer to a religion than to a any belief based on facts, figures and logic.

[Scurrilous]

14. Preparing for the next invasion (Amira Hass)

<snip>

"The management of the Beit Hanun hospital decided to dig a well in the hospital's yard. By Saturday, laborers and bulldozers were already on the job. That is how the hospital is readying itself for the next invasion by the Israeli army.

The hospital, like the rest of Beit Hanun, has faced serious water supply difficulties due to the week-long military assault on the city and its 43,000 inhabitants. On the third night of the invasion, the army removed about 300 people from their homes in anticipation of the planned explosion of a nearby building. Everyone went to the hospital, joining the many injured individuals who were already there. Women and children who had gone out to the street Friday morning were also sent to the small hospital by soldiers.

Hundreds of people gathered there, exhausted and frightened by two sleepless nights, by the unending weapons fire from the positions taken up by the Israel Defense Forces in the houses it had occupied, by the sound of explosions and roar of dozens of tanks and armored personnel carriers that advanced through the streets shredding the roads, knocking down electricity poles, breaking water and sewage pipes, and destroying walls and fences.
Normally, the hospital uses 50,000 liters of water a day. During the entire week of the invasion, the hospital received only 15,000 liters. Children cried from thirst, their parents helpless to ease their suffering. Even in the neighborhood of the Athamna family, which IDF soldiers shelled with a series of deadly artillery shells, people recalled the thirst with a shudder.

The hospital learned other lessons as well. The refrigerator in its morgue had room for three bodies. Another refrigerator has been added, with room for six additional corpses. The hospital will also purchase an underground diesel fuel tank. The western part of the hospital was hit during last week's invasion, a precedent whose lesson is that in the future, flammable materials must be kept out of the range of IDF bullets. The hospital also asked for a budget for ambulances with front-wheel drive, since the current ones could not easily navigate the streets torn up by the tank treads.

The assumption is that the Israeli army will continue to invade, destroy and damage infrastructure - either intentionally, or because that is the nature of tanks - impeding water and electricity supplies and shooting at civilian institutions. The army will not change, and no one will restrain it. Therefore, appropriate preparations must be made."

more

[Scurrilous]

15. Beit Hanun Families planning suit against state

<snip>

"The three Palestinian families who lost nineteen relatives in last week's shelling by the Israel Defense Forces of Beit Hanun plan to sue Israel for monetary damages.Representatives of the Athamneh, Kassem and Aduan families have already hired attorney Ehud Segev to represent them in their suit.

Rassan Kassem, who lost his oldest brother and now spends most of his time alongside his mother's bed at Ichilov Hospital, told Haaretz that they believe the circumstances of the shelling of their home were different than those of other cases in which Palestinian civilians were killed. "I know there is a conflict and war, but this time Israel openly admitted the artillery fire was a mistake," Kassem explains.

"We know Israel does not recognize Palestinian claims, but this is a special case. There was no battle in the area and no Qassam came from us. These people were killed sleeping in their beds. Even Israel recognized that this is different and accepted responsibility, now it must compensate us."

Kassem said the families had other options for action such as appealing to the International Court at the Hague. According to Kassem, Palestinian entities and international human rights organizations are urging them to go the Hague route in order to intensify the political aspect of the circumstances in which they lost their relatives. However, at this time, the families have rejected this idea and also have reservations about acting through Arab members of Knesset."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/789184.html

[breakaleg]

16. They certainly deserve to be recognized in some way and a settlement

from Israel would be a good PR move from Israel. I can't imagine anything making up for their loss.

[Rage for Order]

17. I have one question regarding this article...

What is Hamas' official "safety margin" when firing rockets at Israel and exploding suicide bombs in restaurants and nightclubs? That would be an interesting investigative journalism piece.

[pelsar]

18. its called a racism....

Its a given that Hamas/Hizballa/islamic jihad/Fathah kill israeli civilians....for reasons unknown people who call themselves "humanitarians" and other such nice lables either back them, or at best, offer the israelis no reasonable alternative other than letting themselves be killed.....

its as if "they cant help themselves, but to shoot from civilian areas, they "have no choice" but to shoot missles on israeli schools....seems to me anyone who believes in that must believe they have a limited brain capacity to understand the differences between civillians and military......