Om mänskliga sköldar

I samband med Gazamassakern gick en grupp svenska läkare ut med ett upprop till stöd för israeliska krigsförbrytelser (uppropet i sin helhet, med undertecknare, kan läsas här). I uttalanden gjordes ett stort nummer av hasbara-myten om att Hamas skulle använt Gazabor som mänskliga sköldar.

Nu har fler och fler rapporter kommit ut, t.ex. från Amnesty International och Breaking the Silence, om att israeliska soldater vid flertal tillfällen använde civila palestinier som mänskliga sköldar, enligt DN har israeliska soldater tvingat civila "in i byggnader före soldaterna för att dra på sig eventuell eld." I en tidigare DN-artikel skrivs att "Däremot anklagar Amnesty Israel för att ha använt civila, bland dem barn, som mänskliga sköldar i Gaza genom att tvinga dem att stanna kvar i husen när soldaternas intog militärpositioner."

Kommer nu undertecknarna, som sades sig vara så upprörda över användadet av mänskliga sköldar, offentlig fördöma den israeliska arméns agerande?
Bloggat: Roya

We told you so...

Amnesty International has released a report on the Gaza massacre. It finds, amongst other things, that
1) The "Hamas-keeps-Gazans-as-human-shields"-hoax, which was repeated ad nauseum by the Israeli state propaganda and its apologists during the attack, was a hoax. There is no confirmation that Hamas forced civilian to remain in buildings that were under attack. On the contrary, the AI report finds that Israeli armed forces did in fact keep Gazans as human shields during the fighting.
2) That the Israeli armed forces committed gross war crimes against the civilian population of the Gaza strip.

Read more here at the AI website. There you will find the full report, a video and photo set.

Newslinks: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Amnesty International dismisses Israeli attempt to white-wash IOF atrocities

Amnesty International has refuted several claims made in the IOF 'probe' into the Gaza massacre. From Maan;

"There is a strikingly large gap between the 'very small number' of mistakes referred to in the IDF's [Israeli Military’s]briefing paper and the killing by Israeli forces of some 300 Palestinian children and hundreds of other unarmed civilians," said Donatella Rovera, Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories researcher at Amnesty International. "The army briefing does not even attempt to explain the overwhelming majority of civilian deaths nor the massive destruction caused to civilian buildings in Gaza."

Rovera said the military’s report “mostly repeats claims made by the army and the authorities many times since the early days of Operation Cast Lead, but without providing the necessary evidence to back up the allegations."

She further called the report an “attempt to shirk its [the Military’s] responsibilities [rather] than a genuine process to establish the truth." She charged the Israeli military with the responsibility to “provide evidence that their strikes were indeed against legitimate military targets” rather than placing the onus on the victims.

Citing the prominent example of the shelling of the UNRWA school in Jabaliya on 6 January Rovera quoted the Israeli report as saying, "the soldiers responded with minimal and proportionate retaliatory fire, using the most precise weapon available to them." She added, however, that “the reality is that the soldiers fired at least four mortars into a crowded street.”

A report by Amnesty International said “the use of such a notoriously imprecise weapon [mortars]in a crowded civilian area was virtually certain to cause civilian deaths and injury.” The report also corrected the Israeli assessment that 12 - five combatants and seven civilians – died in these strikes, “in fact some 30 people, mostly civilians, were killed,” the report said.

Amnesty also takes issue over the claim in the report that “fragments of the smoke projectiles [white phosphorus bombs] hit a warehouse located in the [UNRWA] headquarters,” saying that “in reality it was not only fragments which hit the UNRWA compound,” intimating that Israel launched the white phosphorus bombs directly at an UNRWA humanitarian aid warehouse.

The report backs up its claims saying “Amnesty International researchers saw several white phosphorus artillery shells which had landed and exploded inside the compound, together with at least one high explosive artillery shell. Amnesty International has no reason to doubt the army's assurances that it did not target the UNRWA compound, as artillery is too imprecise to be used for pinpoint targeting.”

Read the entire AI press release here.

Newslinks: 1, 2, 3

DN: "Amnesty bekräftar krigsbrott i Gaza"

"Att skjuta på civila är ett krigsbrott oavsett om det handlar om palestinier eller israeler, menar [Amnestys utredare Brian] Dooley, och listar de punkter som särskilt utmärkte Israels krig mot Gaza:

* Det massiva våldet.
* Skyddslösheten. Inte ens skolor, sjukhus eller utländska biståndsorgans byggnader var säkra. Det fanns ingenstans att fly.
* Israels målinriktade försök att förstöra civil infrastruktur. Vägmaskiner och stridsvagnar användes för att förstöra vägar samt el- och telefonledningar.
* Vapen som inte är förbjudna i militära sammanhang användes i stor skala mot civila mål, exempelvis fosforbomber och flechettammunition.

Israel riktade också in sig speciellt på bostäder närmast gränsen till Israel.

– Det beboeliga Gaza har krympt. Vi har enorma civila områden som utsatts för överlagd förstörelse i enorm omfattning och det går inte att se på det på annat sätt än att det var överlagt."

Läs hela artikeln här.

Bloggat: Mitt Lilla Liv påpekar ngt självklart