The Gaza War Crimes Saga continued.

The Gaza Saga on human rights abuses seems to get a nasty tail. A UN inquiry just published their findings.

A United Nations inquiry into the Gaza conflict earlier this year concluded that Israel intentionally struck a U.N.-run elementary school, killing three young men seeking shelter from the fighting, according to a summary released Tuesday.

The incident was one of eight in which the Israel Defense Forces fired on U.N. personnel or facilities that drew scrutiny from a three-member U.N. board of inquiry. The board found that Israel had repeatedly breached the inviolability of U.N. premises and that, in attacking another elementary school, it exhibited "reckless disregard for the lives and safety" of civilians. Two children were killed and 13 others injured in that attack.

The board also accused Hamas or another Palestinian faction of firing a Qassam-type rocket at an unoccupied World Food Program warehouse on the eastern edge of the Gaza Strip.

There was no evidence, the board said, that Palestinian militants had used U.N. facilities to launch military attacks against Israeli troops. (Full)

Update:While the 184 paged report remains confidential to protect witnesses etc.. you can find the 27 page summary of the UN inquiry report here, which goes into sufficient gruesome details, to understand the extend of the issue. The summary also includes a cover letter by the UN Secretary General.

To no surprise, Israel rejected the report’s findings and its Foreign Ministry says the inquiry board “has preferred the claims of Hamas, a murderous terror organisation, and by doing so has misled the world”. Defence Secretary Ehud Barak repeated that Israel has “the most moral army in the world” and laid full responsibility for casualties on Hamas.

The good news is that the report recommends further investigation of other both UN and non-UN related civilian deaths which have given rise to allegations of breaches of international humanitarian law by both the IDF and Hamas.

The bad news is that in his covering letter, the UN chief says he is “carefully considering” what actions “if any” to take on the 11 recommendations by the inquiry team. Mr Ban goes out of his way to thank Israel for its co-operation in the inquiry. He makes a point – urged on him by Israeli ministers and officials – of speaking out against “continued and indiscriminate” attacks by Hamas. As a conclusion: "I do not plan any further enquiries." (Full)

In short: This report concludes that it looks most probable both Hamas and Israel have committed either war crimes and/or stepped on the international humanitarian laws with excessive civilian casualties as a result. But.. let's all have a drink and forget about it...

Picture courtesy The Guardian

Read the full post...

Picture of the Day: Gaza - despite all odds

Palestinian girls look out from the balcony of their house in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

More Pictures of the Day on The Road

Picture courtesy Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters

Read the full post...

Tony Benn: "People in Gaza would die because of the BBC"

The row over the BBC's decision not broadcasting the aid appeal for Gaza (see my earlier post) is not over yet. Tony Benn takes on the BBC in this video:



Tony Benn is not just anyone: as a former UK Minister of Technology and Secretary of State for Energy, he is the second longest serving member of parliament.

Read the full post...

Picture of the Day: The American School in Gaza

[Ed: no comment]

More Pictures of the Day on The Road.
Picture courtesy AP

Read the full post...

Who said the UN is only taking sides against Israel?

United Nations Humanitarian Affairs Chief John Holmes blasted Hamas for its "cynical" use of civilian facilities during recent hostilities in the Gaza Strip.

"The reckless and cynical use of civilian installations by Hamas and indiscriminate firing of rockets against civilian populations are clear violations of international humanitarian law," Holmes told the UN Security Council. (Full)

Picture courtesy AP Photo

Read the full post...

Amnesty International accuses Israel

In two separate cases, Amnesty International accuses Israel of not respecting international conventions during the recent Gaza conflict:

Under the Geneva Conventions, medical personnel searching, collecting, transporting or treating the wounded should be protected and respected in all circumstances. Common Article 3 of the Conventions says that the wounded should be collected and cared for, including combatants who are hors de combat.

These provisions of international law have not been respected during the recent three-week conflict in the Gaza Strip. Emergency medical rescue workers, including doctors, paramedics and ambulance drivers, repeatedly came under fire from Israeli forces while they were carrying out their duties. At least seven were killed and more than 20 were injured while they were transporting or attempting to collect the wounded and the dead. (Full)

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 into 120mm shells. (...)

Flechettes are an anti-personnel weapon designed to penetrate dense vegetation and to strike a large number of enemy soldiers. They should never be used in built-up civilian areas. (Full)

Read the full post...

BBC: No ads for Gaza aid appeal

Normally when Britain's Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) launches an aid appeal, major television channels provide slots for short video ads, often fronted by celebrities, explaining the emergency and how the public can donate money.

In late November, for example, when the coalition of 13 British-based aid agencies asked for funds for their work in eastern Congo, the BBC backed the campaign, airing a two-and-a-half minute film presented by actress Juliet Stevenson.

But not this time: British broadcasters declined to run adverts for the DEC's latest appeal "to help ease the desperate plight of people affected by the conflict in Gaza".

A BBC spokesman said:

"Along with other broadcasters, the BBC has decided not to broadcast the DEC's public appeal to raise funds for Gaza. The BBC's decision was made because of question marks about the delivery of aid in a volatile situation, and also to avoid any risk of compromising public confidence in the BBC's impartiality in the context of an ongoing news story." (Full)

Several UK ministers urged the BBC to recognise "immense human suffering" and show the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal. 200 people protested in front of the BBC's studios.

Rivals ITV, Channel 4 and Five -at first supportive of the BBC decision- reversed their decision and will show the charity appeal. They said the issue "transcends politics". (Full)

Update:
Here is a summary of backlashing opinions on the BBC's stand. Where they took the decision not to air the appeal in order not to show a perceived bias, clearly it all turned against them. A strong bias was perceived after all.

Thanks to "E" for the tip.
Picture courtesy Wesam Saleh/Maan Images

Read the full post...

Gaza: Did Israel want a human(itarian) crisis?

Ben White wrote a provocative opinion piece in the Guardian, under the title "Israel wanted a humanitarian crisis:"

Targeting civilians was a deliberate part of this bid to humiliate Hamas and the Palestinians, and pulverise Gaza into chaos.(...)

First, to what this war on Gaza is not about: it's not about the rockets. During the truce last year, rocket fire from the Gaza Strip was reduced by 97%, with the few projectiles that were fired coming from non-Hamas groups opposed to the agreement. Despite this success in vastly improving the security of Israelis in the south, Israel did everything it could to undermine the calm, and provoke Hamas into a conflict.(...)

Estimates for the proportion of civilian deaths among the 1,360 Palestinians killed range from more than half to two-thirds. Politicians, diplomats and journalists are by and large shying away from the obvious, namely that Israel has been deliberately targeting Palestinian civilians and the very infrastructure of normal life, in order to – in the best colonial style – teach the natives a lesson. (Full)

Another clip, also published in The Guardian, features an audio-slides about the use of phosphorous shells in the bombing of the Gaza UN school.

Discovered via The Road Daily.

Picture courtesy PopulistAmerica

Read the full post...

Picture of the Day: Gaza - the day after

UN humanitarian chief John Holmes has urged Israel to fully open all crossings with Gaza to allow a free flow of goods. (Full)

More Pictures of the Day on The Road.

Picture Getty Images

Read the full post...

Protests in support of Gaza in Rome

Today, about 3,000 people took to the streets protesting the Israeli incursion of Gaza.

Our local reporter "E" was present on the spot, reporting on what she called "a peaceful demonstration". She sent these pictures live from the rally.

Read the full post...

Gaza: How "collateral" is the collateral damage?

Collateral damage is defined as: "Unintentional or incidental injury or damage to persons or objects that would not be lawful military targets in the circumstances ruling at the time. Such damage is not unlawful so long as it is not excessive in light of the overall military advantage anticipated from the attack."

Now look at this extract from the latest UN situation report in Gaza:

As of 12 January, there were five UNRWA [Ed: UN Relief and Works Agency] staff fatalities and three UNRWA contractor fatalities due to the fighting since 27 December.
There were also four UNRWA staff and four UNRWA contractors injured. One WFP [Ed: UN World Food Programme] contractor was killed and two others were injured.

At least 49 UN buildings have sustained damage during the fighting; one international NGO partner clinic has reportedly been destroyed; and several NGO compounds have been damaged. There have also been at least four incidents of aid convoys being hit by gunfire. (Full)

Now I ask you: how collateral is this really? Can this still be understood as "unintentional" and "incidental"?

See also Civilian and aid worker casualties on the rise in Gaza.

Picture courtesy AFP

Read the full post...

Gaza: UN aid headquarters shelled

The UNRWA headquarters in Gaza was shelled by Israeli forces today, injuring three employees and setting fire to warehouses of badly-needed aid.

This happened while UN chief Ban Ki-moon arrived in Israel, who commented to be "outraged". The UN operations in Gaza were temporarily suspended.

The fire, which was still raging hours later, destroyed an estimated "tens of millions of dollars worth of aid," the UN spokesperson said.

The UN is trying to evacuate the 700 people who took refuge in the compound.

The UN claims an other phosphorous shell landed in the compound, near the fuel depot.
Under international law phosphorous bombs can not be used in the vicinity of civilians. (See earlier post)

Another humanitarian group, CARE International, said it too had been forced to suspend all deliveries of food and medical supplies due to heavy bombardment in and around its warehouses and distribution sites in Gaza City. (Full)

More posts on The Road about Gaza

Picture courtesy Mohammed Saber/European Pressphoto Agency

Read the full post...

Flies on webcam fuel renewed hostilities in Gaza

From our reporter in Gaza:

As we monitored the two webcams at the Gaza/Israel Keram Shalom border crossing today (this post), it soon became apparent that the camera pointing towards Gaza had a chronic problem with a fly walking over the lens. The camera pointing towards Israel's side of the border was fly-free.

The Palestinian authorities immediately launched an official objection at the UN Security Council, calling for a resolution to have the Gaza camera fly-free too.

This prompted the UN Secretary-General to deploy an online UN monitoring force, the UN International Fly Observers (UNIFO), who reported the following:

[Gaza side]: 09:15- Fly walks over. Stops.
[Gaza side]: 09:17- Fly sits on side of screen
[Gaza side]: 09:19- Fly walks to the other side

(..) goes on until 10:17 when things get heated up:

[Gaza side]: 10:17- Two flies have sex. Duration 1.12 sec
[Gaza side]: 10:25- Two flies have sex. Duration 1.54 sec
[Gaza side]: 11:05- Two flies have sex. Duration 10.04 sec

After the report was shared with the reporters in the late afternoon, Hamas called a press conference, claiming the two flies were Palestinian - as they were on the Gaza-pointed camera.

Israel officially objected by claiming the fly-act. The spokesperson for the Israeli Ministry of Information stated that.. "10.04 seconds of sex for a fly is equal to 10 hours of sex for humans. We have detailed ..euh.. information that no Palestinian fly can have sex for 10.04 seconds. The third fly-sex record was indeed done by Israeli flies."

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society made things more complex by stating they evacuated two entangled flies around 11:10, confirming they were indeed Palestinian. Israel resolutely claimed the flies were under-cover Mossad agents, asked for their release, and called for an impromptu fly-embargo on Gaza.

Egypt extended its solidarity to the Palestinian cause by sending a container full of flies to Gaza, a shipment coordinated by the UN. Hamas consecutively confiscated the shipment and sold the flies to Israeli farmers, claiming they were bees.

Israel replicated by spraying the flies on the Gaza-pointed webcam with "BAM", a US-supplied insecticide. This drastic move was condemned by WTF, the World Trustfund for Flies, as a war crime.

The Arab League started the "Free the FLIES" campaign which, apparently, already has 100,000 registered signatures, even before the website came online.

George Lucas will make a movie out of the incident, apparently to be called "Sex on the Fly".

More satire on The Road.

Read the full post...

Gaza: the face of war.

While the political rhetoric, misinformation and propaganda about the Israel-Palestinian conflict continues, we should not forget the human aspect of the suffering. Let's put faces on a war:

From Times online: "Gaza families eat grass as Israel locks border".

As a convoy of blue-and-white United Nations trucks loaded with food waited last night for Israeli permission to enter Gaza, Jindiya Abu Amra and her 12-year-old daughter went scrounging for the wild grass their family now lives on.

“We had one meal today - khobbeizeh,” said Abu Amra, 43, showing the leaves of a plant that grows along the streets of Gaza. “Every day, I wake up and start looking for wood and plastic to burn for fuel and I beg. When I find nothing, we eat this grass.”

Abu Amra and her unemployed husband have seven daughters and a son. Their tiny breeze-block house has had no furniture since they burnt the last cupboard for heat.

“I can’t remember seeing a fruit,” said Rabab, 12, who goes with her mother most mornings to scavenge. She is dressed in a tracksuit top and holed jeans, and her feet are bare.

From CNN: "Aid worker: Gaza blockade lacks all humanity"

I arrived in Israel yesterday to work with Mercy Corps, an international aid organization, to assist the Gazans who are suffering from the conflict and over 18 months of harsh blockades that have left their cupboards bare and their banks empty of cash. (...)

In 2007 an average of 500 trucks a day entered Gaza with food and supplies. In comparison, yesterday, just 36 humanitarian trucks were allowed access to Gaza. With almost the entire population of 1.5 million Gazans dependent on humanitarian assistance, it is obvious that the incoming aid is not even remotely adequate.

We have spent the past 11 days working through Israeli red tape and protocols that seemed to change daily, to secure the permission to deliver food aid. We have a truck filled with rice, cooking oil, canned tuna fish and edible dates that will feed 2,000 people for about a week.

Yesterday the delivery was supposed go through but at 2:00 a.m. we received notice from the Israeli authorities that the delivery was being postponed because it contained edible dates as part of the package.

From AP: "Gaza medics face war's carnage daily"

Few are more exposed to the carnage of Israel's two-week military offensive than Gaza's medics, who number around 400 including volunteers. They work long hours, get little sleep and risk their lives daily. Many have lost friends and family, but the overwhelming workload leaves no time to process what they've seen.

Awaiting coordination with Israel often delays access to the injured, medics said. Some reported finding people stranded in their homes for days, or bodies lying in the streets uncollected.

"Disgusting is not the word," said Shawki Saleh, 24, a volunteer medic at Kamal Adwan hospital. "If it's not a dog, it's rats around the bodies. ... I've been doing this volunteer work for two years but I never imagined I'd see this. Who knows how many people are still under the rubble. We were carrying them out screaming."

In one long workday, medic Haitham Adgheir carried five corpses, saw six more at a Gaza hospital, and his medical convoy took Israeli tank fire that showered a driver with glass.

"My mind is like a video of body parts and injured people," said Adgheir, 33.

Picture courtesy Ismail Zaydah/Reuters

Read the full post...

The war in Gaza escalates. Civilian and aid worker casualties on the rise. Words "Crimes Against Humanity" coming up.

Today Israel dropped bombs and leaflets on Gaza, pounding suspected rocket sites and tunnels used by Hamas militants and warning of a wider offensive despite frantic diplomacy to end the bloodshed. It is clear this conflict is nowhere near to the end (Full)

Rejecting Friday's UN Security Council resolution that called for an immediate and durable cease-fire, Israel and Hamas continued to fight. Israeli jets and troops attacked Hamas targets in Gaza, and Palestinian militants fired about 30 rockets into southern Israel. (Full)

Meanwhile, the international community is building up criticism on Israel's indiscriminate targeting of civilians and aid workers:

• ICRC (the International Committee of the Red Cross) stated Israel has violated its obligations under international humanitarian law by refusing to assist civilians wounded in its attacks on the Gaza Strip. In the Zaytun neighborhood of Gaza City, ICRC workers found four small children next to their dead mothers in one of the houses. They were too weak to stand up on their own. One man was also found alive, too weak to stand up. ICRC stated "The Israeli military must have been aware of the situation but did not assist the wounded." (Full)
• On December 30, several Israeli gunboats intercepted a ship with aid supplies, the SS Dignity, in international waters. The ship carried international medical aid workers and three tonnes of medical supplies. One Israeli gunboat is believed to have rammed the boat on the port bow side, heavily damaging her. (Full)
• On Friday night, an Israeli drone missile hit a car from the Norwegian People's Aid (NPA), an international NGO. NPA stated the car was clearly marked with the NPA logo, and that it was impossible not to recognize that this was a humanitarian vehicle. The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated the incident as a clear violation of international law. (Full)
• Earlier this week, an ambulance belonging to an Oxfam partner organisation was hit by an Israeli shell, killing one aidworker, and injuring two others. (Full)
• A CARE aidworker was killed on January 6th in an aerial bombing. Mohammed Ibrahim Samouni, a father of six, was killed and his son was critically injured. (Full)
• Also last week, an Israeli tank shelled a clearly marked UN school, leaving 43 Palestinians civilian dead and almost 150 injured. 1,600 people were taking shelter in the school, according to the UN, who confirmed there were only civilians in the school, which was clearly marked with a UN flag and its GPS location was duely reported to the Israeli authorities. (Full)
• Human Rights Watch accused Israel of using white-phosphorus munitions during its offensive in the Gaza Strip and warned of the risk to Palestinian civilians who live near the fighting. The use of white-phosphorus in densely populated areas of Gaza violates international humanitarian law (Full)
  
• On Thursday a aidworker was killed after a UN relief agency convoy came under fire from Israeli forces. The attack took place as the lorries travelled to the Erez border crossing to pick up supplies. The incident happened during an Israel approved three hour seize fire aimed at allowing humanitarian aid to move into Gaza. This eventually caused UNRWA, the main UN agency providing aid to the Palestinians, to suspend all food aid. (Full)
• Israeli forces shelled a house in which they had moved around 110 Palestinians into 24 hours earlier. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) called it "one of the gravest incidents" since the beginning of the offensive. 30 people were killed. (Full)
• Similar incidents were singled out by Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. She called for independent investigations into possible war crimes committed by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip. "I am concerned with violations of international law. Incidents such as this must be investigated because they display elements of what could constitute war crimes," Pillay told the press. (Full)
• As many as 257 children have been killed and 1,080 wounded (a third of the total casualties since Dec. 27) according to U.N. figures released on Thursday. (Full)

The UN humanitarian situation report on Gaza of Jan 9th summarizes the numbers: 800 dead, 3,300 injured and over 21,000 people displaced within Gaza.

Picture courtesy Mohammed Salem (ABCNews)

Read the full post...

Live webcams of the Israel/Gaza border crossing

We talked a lot in the past days about humanitarian aid coming into Gaza. Here are the live webcams at the critical Keram Shalom Israel/Gaza border crossing. This crossing is one of the main crossings used for humanitarian aid.

If you have the Windows Media plug-in in their browser, you can see the live webcams on screen. Otherwise, just click on the link "Click here to view the content directly in your Windows Media Player" and Windows Media will show you the webcam.

The cameras are set at both sides of the Kerem Shalom crossing. The first is looking toward the Israeli side, the second is looking towards the Palestinian side. Obviously, at night, there is not much action.

More on The Road about Gaza.

Read the full post...

Gaza: the wrongs and rights of killing civilians.

The Economist questions the proportionality of Israel's response to the Hamas rocket attacks:

In the arithmetic of death, the latest fight between Israel and Hamas has been an unequal contest: more than 350 Palestinians killed in Israeli air strikes in the first four days, many of them civilians, against four Israelis killed by Hamas’s rockets. But does such one-sided bloodshed make Israel guilty of using “disproportionate force”, as argued by, among others, Amnesty International and Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, just ending his six-month presidency of the European Union?

Proportionality is intimately bound up with notions of the just war, and has been enshrined in treaties regulating warfare’s conduct since the Hague Convention of 1907. But familiar as it is, proportionality is a slippery idea. It has two different meanings in Western theory. On the grounds for going to war, jus ad bellum, the cause must be important enough to justify force; any good that will follow must outweigh the inevitable pain and destruction. In the conduct of war, jus in bello, any action must weigh the military gain against the likely harm to civilians. (Full)

This is the more to be questioned as today two UN schools were hit by Israeli missiles, killing over 30 people.

Maxwell Gaylard, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory, issued a statement saying:

"These tragic incidents need to be investigated, and if international humanitarian law has been contravened, those responsible must held accountable." (Full)

Meanwhile, Israel insisted there is no humanitarian crisis for the Palestinians living in Gaza, a statement contradicted by the UN humanitarian chief:

"This is, in our view, a humanitarian crisis. It's very hard for me to see any other way you could describe it, given the conditions in which the population are living." (Full)

Check the latest UN situation report on Gaza.
Join the discussion thread about Gaza on The Road's forum.

Discovered via AidNews
Picture courtesy Muhammed Muheisen/AP Photo

Read the full post...

Mapping the war in Gaza

Al Jazeera tracks the war in Gaza using a Ushahidi-like interface, combining input from news bulletins and live reports coming in via Twitter and SMS.

Discovered via Black Looks

Read the full post...

UN official on the Gaza conflict: "The extremists will benefit"

Lakhdar Brahimi, a senior UN politician/troubleshooter and a former Algerian foreign minister, gave an interesting interview in The Nation.

Why did this conflict happen now? Who will win, who will loose, in the end? What is the potential role of the US, Europe and Middle Eastern powers? Why has Obama not reacted?

What will happen in the West Bank as the result of the assault on Gaza?

If the past is anything to go by, these kind of total attacks that do so much harm to civilians generally reinforce the so-called extremists, not the moderates. I think it was said in Ha'aretz that no military action has reinforced the moderates in the history of Israel. One has to suppose that in this particular case Hamas will come out politically reinforced, no matter how much they will lose militarily. That is true not only in Gaza but also in the West Bank.

I'm afraid it will be true also in the rest of the Arab world. The Islamist political movements in the Arab world live really on the lack of success of the so-called moderates, the people who are cooperating with the West. They thrive on their failures, an in particular on their total impotence to help the people of Palestine. I'm sure that from Morocco to Indonesia really, the Islamists will gain capital out of this. (Full)

See also the UN situation report on Gaza
Join the discussion threat about the Gaza conflict on The Road's forum.


Articles discovered via AidNews. Picture courtesy BBC

Read the full post...

Gaza: Ripped apart by bullets.

A Palestinian family on their balcony in the Rafah refugee camp between Egypt and the Gaza strip. U.N. Security Council calls for an immediate halt to all violence in territory. (Full)

More Pictures of the Day on The Road.

Picture courtesy Mohammed Saber-EPA

Read the full post...