No justice for the victims of NATO bombings
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/news/no-justice-victims-nato-bombings-20090423
23 April 2009
Ten years on, no-one has been held to account for the NATO attack on the Serbian state radio and television building that left 16 civilians dead. Sixteen civilians were also injured during the air attack on 23 April 1999 on the headquarters and studios of Radio Televizija Srbije (RTS) in central Belgrade.
Those killed included a make-up artist, a cameraman, an editor, a programme director, three security guards and other media support staff. An estimated 200 staff are thought to have been working in the building at the time.
"The bombing of the headquarters of Serbian state radio and television was a deliberate attack on a civilian object and as such constitutes a war crime," Sian Jones, Amnesty International’s Balkans expert said.
NATO officials confirmed to Amnesty International in early 2000 that they targeted RTS because of its propaganda function, in order to undermine the morale of the population and the armed forces.
"Justifying an attack on the grounds of combating propaganda stretches the meaning of 'effective contribution to military action' and 'definite military advantage'. These are essential requirements of the legal definition of a military objective - beyond acceptable bounds of interpretation.
"Even if NATO genuinely believed RTS was a legitimate target, the attack was disproportionate and hence a war crime," Sian Jones said.
NATO officials also confirmed that no specific warning of this particular attack was given, even though they knew many civilians would be in the RTS building.
The raid was part of NATO's "Operation Allied Force" against the then Federal Republic of Yugoslavia between March and June 1999. Approximately 500 civilians were killed and 900 injured during the course of the conflict.
Many of these casualties were caused by indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks and a failure to take necessary precautions to protect civilians.
In several attacks, including the Grdelica railroad bridge on 12 April 1999, the road bridge in Lužane on 1 May 1999 and Varvarin bridge on 30 May 1999, NATO forces failed to suspend their attack after it was evident that they had struck civilians. In other cases, including the attacks on displaced civilians in Djakovica on 14 April 1999 and Koriša on 13 May 1999, NATO failed to take necessary precautions to minimize civilian casualties.
"Civilian deaths could have been significantly reduced during the conflict if NATO forces had fully adhered to the laws of war," said Sian Jones. "Ten years on, no public investigation has ever been conducted by NATO or its member states into these incidents."
Amnesty International recommended as early as 2000 that the victims of violations committed by NATO receive redress. Yet the victims of the RTS bombing and their relatives have never received any redress or reparations, including compensation, despite proceedings in domestic courts in Serbia and further applications to the European Court of Human Rights (Banković and others v Belgium and others and Markovic v Italy), which ruled the cases inadmissible.
Many of the problems that undermined compliance with international humanitarian and human rights law in "Operation Allied Force" – such as lack of clarity in the command structure and decision-making processes on target selection, divergent understanding among national contingents of applicable international law – persist in the alliance’s operations in Afghanistan.
"It now appears that NATO has failed to learn from the mistakes of Operation Allied Force. If anything, NATO appears to have taken a step backward in transparency, releasing less information about attacks it carries out in Afghanistan than it did during Operation Allied Force," said Sian Jones.
"The most powerful military alliance in the world cannot afford but to set the highest standards of protection of civilians according to international humanitarian law. It must be held accountable for any violations of that law."
Read More
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) /NATO: "Collateral damage" or unlawful killings? Violations of the Laws of War by NATO during Operation Allied Force (Report, 5 June 2000)
Showing posts with label War Crimes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label War Crimes. Show all posts
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Firebombing of Civilians: An Act of Terror Revisited?
Firebombing of Japanese Cities during World War II
taken from http://www.bookmice.net/darkchilde/japan/fire.html
One of the areas that almost everyone knows about concerning World War II is the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
One of the areas that is not as well known, but should be, is the firebombing of Japanese cities which, overall, wrecked more death and destruction than the atomic bombs. Anyone who has seen the Miyazaki film Grave of the Fireflies, though, already has an idea just how horrible this process was.
From the book Before the Bomb: How America Approached the End of the Pacific War, 1997: "Dissatisfaction with the damage results of high-altitude bombing with conventional explosives helped renew interest in incendiary bombing, a tactic espoused by Army Air Forces personnel as early as the 1920's."
(For those not familiar with history, the Air Force was not always a separate branch of the military. For a long time it was the Army Air Force, falling under the guidance and control of the Army.)
During the first year of bombing things did not go particularly well. Although the B-29s dropped 1,550 tons of explosives in seven missions only one bomb in 50 hit within 1,000 feet of where it was supposed to hit.
"Shortly after he assumed control of the bomber groups based in the Marianas in January 1945, Gen. Curtis LeMay prepared for night-time firebombing of Japanese cities. "
Things did not immediately improve, though. The damage the bombers did was considered to be too little, and the losses to high. In February of 1945 he changed tactics. Instead of the planes simply carrying bombs, they started to carry a mix of incendiaries and fragmentation bombs.
The first test of this was Kobe, a major shipyard city. 159 tons of firebombs and 13 tons of high explosives were dropped, resulting in the destruction of 1,000 buildings and severely damaging two of the shipyards. The next attack was a complete failure, though, as the Nakajima plant in Ota was bombed with 47 of the 97 bombs dropped being duds.
So it was time to change tactics again. This time they decided to give the bomber crews intensive training and napalm was picked as a substance to be used during the bombings. A test of this was an early bombing of Tokyo, and the results were about a square mile of the city being destroyed. LeMay decided to have the planes carry heavier bombs and fly at a lower altitude.
The testing of the new tactics began with the bombing of Tokyo on March 9. 334 B-29s took part flying far lower than ever before on a bomb run. Pathfinder planes dropped napalm bombs every 100 feet to make an "X" on the ground, a target for the rest of the planes to attack. The attack itself took over three hours.
The Japanese later listed over 83,000 dead in the attack; over 40,000 wounded and a total of 15.8 square miles of the city were burned to ashes with the destruction of 265,171 buildings. The intensity of the fire was so much that the water in the rivers reached the boiling point.
The bombing was continued and within ten days 32 square miles of Japanese cities basically ceased to exist. Bomber losses decreased during the process. By the end of April, 11 more square miles of cities had been destroyed. One and a half square miles of Yokohama, three and a half square miles of Kawasaki joined the areas destroyed.
While this was going on there was simultaneously Operation Starvation, which was the mining of Japanese harbors. 36 of 47 supply routes for the Japanese were closed down due to the process.
In May Nagoya became a target with the loss of four square miles of the city. Tokyo lost seventeen more square miles. Nine square miles of Yokohama were wiped out towards the end of May. Osaka faired no better with the loss of over 136,000 homes, 4,200 factories and almost 4,000 casualties.
Smaller targets were also hit. Toyama, a small urban area of 128,000, was 100% destroyed. From May to August , U.S. planes firebombed fifty-eight Japanese cities. Four cities, though, were kept off the firebombing list; those included Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Niigata and Kokura.
"...Reports about bombing seldom mentioned civilian casualties, even when describing a Japanese city as ‘a flaming cauldron.' By 1945 most people accepted the bombing of urban areas, especially Japanese cities. The lack of reference to civilian losses also reflected the pervasive notion that incinerating civilians, however regrettable, was justifiable if it ultimately saved American lives." Before the Bomb
A really good example of this was the title of an article in the Atlantic Constitution: "Keep ‘Em Frying."
The firebombing went so well, in fact, that the military was actually running out of reasonable targets to firebomb and an estimate by General LeMay said they would run out of targets by Christmas of 1945.
From the June 4, 1945 issue of Newsweek, a report on the firebombing:
"Six weeks ago Tokyo had a population of nearly 7,000,000. Last week the Japs cried that Tokyo no longer existed as a city. Using new techniques and new bombs, the largest fleets of B-29s ever to take the air and turned most of the Japanese capital into ashes in two great strikes on May 24 and 26....For 105 minutes the Superfortresses filed over and dropped 700,000 incendiary bombs. ... Two nights later a force of more than 500 B-29s struck the Marunouchi district, the business heart of the Japanese Empire. ... On a target area of approximately 9 square miles the B-29s dropped 4,000 tons in one hour. The wind did the rest."
From the June 11, 1945 issue of Newsweek, another summary of results:
"On the morning of May 28, more than 450 B-29s, escorted by about 150 P-51s from Iwo Jima, roared in on he familiar trail over Tokyo Bay. Reconnaissance photos showed that 51.3 square miles of Tokyo had been burned out. ... the B-29's smothered Yokohama with 3,200 tons of incendiaries."
In July of 1945 the U.S. dropped leaflets on some Japanese cities, warning them that they could end up being firebombed. The next day six of the cities were. This was repeated. The general effect, of course, is to try and demoralize the enemy population by showing the Japanese just how totally helpless they were, and that their own military could not prevent Japanese cities from being attacked directly and bombed, something that had not happened on any scale ever in the entire history of Japan.
( 1853: Admiral Perry sailed into a Japanese harbor and used the threat of force to make Japan open itself to trade with other nations. This was about as close to a direct invasion as Japan had experienced for well over a hundred years.)
What is astonishing is that, despite the incredible losses and the fact that there was virtually nothing Japan could do to stop the bombing, the country kept fighting. No matter how many square miles were destroyed, no matter how many civilians died, the military wanted to keep fighting.
It is interesting to speculate on what would have been done with the firebombing if a physical invasion of the islands had actually taken place. Firebombing would not have reached any deep bunker defenses, so some of the army would still have been able to fight. On the other hand, firebombing a swath of land maybe fifty or sixty miles wide coupled with firebombing all the farm areas could possibly have cleared an area enough that the U.S. military could have gotten a beachhold without horrible casualties.
Still, though, that beachhold would have eventually have had to been extended further and further. Perhaps intense firebombing of adjacent areas and all crops could possibly have allowed the U.S. military to eventually conquer Japan, but the loss in civilian lives would have been almost unimaginable. It might have prevented the need for using the atomic bomb, and on the other hand it might not have. It's one of those historical questions that can never really be answered.
More links:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0310-01.htm
http://en.allexperts.com/e/f/fi/firebombing.htm
http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Nurnberg/Nurnberg01.html
http://www.century-of-flight.net/Aviation%20history/WW2/bombing%20of%20Nuremberg.htm
taken from http://www.bookmice.net/darkchilde/japan/fire.html
One of the areas that almost everyone knows about concerning World War II is the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
One of the areas that is not as well known, but should be, is the firebombing of Japanese cities which, overall, wrecked more death and destruction than the atomic bombs. Anyone who has seen the Miyazaki film Grave of the Fireflies, though, already has an idea just how horrible this process was.
From the book Before the Bomb: How America Approached the End of the Pacific War, 1997: "Dissatisfaction with the damage results of high-altitude bombing with conventional explosives helped renew interest in incendiary bombing, a tactic espoused by Army Air Forces personnel as early as the 1920's."
(For those not familiar with history, the Air Force was not always a separate branch of the military. For a long time it was the Army Air Force, falling under the guidance and control of the Army.)
During the first year of bombing things did not go particularly well. Although the B-29s dropped 1,550 tons of explosives in seven missions only one bomb in 50 hit within 1,000 feet of where it was supposed to hit.
"Shortly after he assumed control of the bomber groups based in the Marianas in January 1945, Gen. Curtis LeMay prepared for night-time firebombing of Japanese cities. "
Things did not immediately improve, though. The damage the bombers did was considered to be too little, and the losses to high. In February of 1945 he changed tactics. Instead of the planes simply carrying bombs, they started to carry a mix of incendiaries and fragmentation bombs.
The first test of this was Kobe, a major shipyard city. 159 tons of firebombs and 13 tons of high explosives were dropped, resulting in the destruction of 1,000 buildings and severely damaging two of the shipyards. The next attack was a complete failure, though, as the Nakajima plant in Ota was bombed with 47 of the 97 bombs dropped being duds.
So it was time to change tactics again. This time they decided to give the bomber crews intensive training and napalm was picked as a substance to be used during the bombings. A test of this was an early bombing of Tokyo, and the results were about a square mile of the city being destroyed. LeMay decided to have the planes carry heavier bombs and fly at a lower altitude.
The testing of the new tactics began with the bombing of Tokyo on March 9. 334 B-29s took part flying far lower than ever before on a bomb run. Pathfinder planes dropped napalm bombs every 100 feet to make an "X" on the ground, a target for the rest of the planes to attack. The attack itself took over three hours.
The Japanese later listed over 83,000 dead in the attack; over 40,000 wounded and a total of 15.8 square miles of the city were burned to ashes with the destruction of 265,171 buildings. The intensity of the fire was so much that the water in the rivers reached the boiling point.
The bombing was continued and within ten days 32 square miles of Japanese cities basically ceased to exist. Bomber losses decreased during the process. By the end of April, 11 more square miles of cities had been destroyed. One and a half square miles of Yokohama, three and a half square miles of Kawasaki joined the areas destroyed.
While this was going on there was simultaneously Operation Starvation, which was the mining of Japanese harbors. 36 of 47 supply routes for the Japanese were closed down due to the process.
In May Nagoya became a target with the loss of four square miles of the city. Tokyo lost seventeen more square miles. Nine square miles of Yokohama were wiped out towards the end of May. Osaka faired no better with the loss of over 136,000 homes, 4,200 factories and almost 4,000 casualties.
Smaller targets were also hit. Toyama, a small urban area of 128,000, was 100% destroyed. From May to August , U.S. planes firebombed fifty-eight Japanese cities. Four cities, though, were kept off the firebombing list; those included Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Niigata and Kokura.
"...Reports about bombing seldom mentioned civilian casualties, even when describing a Japanese city as ‘a flaming cauldron.' By 1945 most people accepted the bombing of urban areas, especially Japanese cities. The lack of reference to civilian losses also reflected the pervasive notion that incinerating civilians, however regrettable, was justifiable if it ultimately saved American lives." Before the Bomb
A really good example of this was the title of an article in the Atlantic Constitution: "Keep ‘Em Frying."
The firebombing went so well, in fact, that the military was actually running out of reasonable targets to firebomb and an estimate by General LeMay said they would run out of targets by Christmas of 1945.
From the June 4, 1945 issue of Newsweek, a report on the firebombing:
"Six weeks ago Tokyo had a population of nearly 7,000,000. Last week the Japs cried that Tokyo no longer existed as a city. Using new techniques and new bombs, the largest fleets of B-29s ever to take the air and turned most of the Japanese capital into ashes in two great strikes on May 24 and 26....For 105 minutes the Superfortresses filed over and dropped 700,000 incendiary bombs. ... Two nights later a force of more than 500 B-29s struck the Marunouchi district, the business heart of the Japanese Empire. ... On a target area of approximately 9 square miles the B-29s dropped 4,000 tons in one hour. The wind did the rest."
From the June 11, 1945 issue of Newsweek, another summary of results:
"On the morning of May 28, more than 450 B-29s, escorted by about 150 P-51s from Iwo Jima, roared in on he familiar trail over Tokyo Bay. Reconnaissance photos showed that 51.3 square miles of Tokyo had been burned out. ... the B-29's smothered Yokohama with 3,200 tons of incendiaries."
In July of 1945 the U.S. dropped leaflets on some Japanese cities, warning them that they could end up being firebombed. The next day six of the cities were. This was repeated. The general effect, of course, is to try and demoralize the enemy population by showing the Japanese just how totally helpless they were, and that their own military could not prevent Japanese cities from being attacked directly and bombed, something that had not happened on any scale ever in the entire history of Japan.
( 1853: Admiral Perry sailed into a Japanese harbor and used the threat of force to make Japan open itself to trade with other nations. This was about as close to a direct invasion as Japan had experienced for well over a hundred years.)
What is astonishing is that, despite the incredible losses and the fact that there was virtually nothing Japan could do to stop the bombing, the country kept fighting. No matter how many square miles were destroyed, no matter how many civilians died, the military wanted to keep fighting.
It is interesting to speculate on what would have been done with the firebombing if a physical invasion of the islands had actually taken place. Firebombing would not have reached any deep bunker defenses, so some of the army would still have been able to fight. On the other hand, firebombing a swath of land maybe fifty or sixty miles wide coupled with firebombing all the farm areas could possibly have cleared an area enough that the U.S. military could have gotten a beachhold without horrible casualties.
Still, though, that beachhold would have eventually have had to been extended further and further. Perhaps intense firebombing of adjacent areas and all crops could possibly have allowed the U.S. military to eventually conquer Japan, but the loss in civilian lives would have been almost unimaginable. It might have prevented the need for using the atomic bomb, and on the other hand it might not have. It's one of those historical questions that can never really be answered.
More links:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0310-01.htm
http://en.allexperts.com/e/f/fi/firebombing.htm
http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Nurnberg/Nurnberg01.html
http://www.century-of-flight.net/Aviation%20history/WW2/bombing%20of%20Nuremberg.htm
Friday, October 30, 2009
Jonathan Cook: Outcry Over Israel's War Crimes
Weekend Edition
January 9-11, 2009
"We Are Very Violent"
Outcry Over Israel's War Crimes
By JONATHAN COOK
Nazareth.
Criticism by international watchdog groups over the increasing death toll in Gaza mounted this week as the first legal actions inside Israel were launched accusing the army of intentionally harming the enclave’s civilian population.
The petitions – over attacks on medical personnel and the shelling of United Nations schools in Gaza – follow statements by senior Israeli commanders that they have been using heavy firepower to protect soldiers during their advance on built-up areas. “We are very violent,” one told Israeli media.
There is also growing evidence that Israeli forces have been firing phosphorus shells over densely populated areas in a move that risks violating international law by inflicting burns on civilians.
The Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, meanwhile, called the events in Gaza a “new Nakba”, referring to the catastrophe that dispossessed the Palestinians in 1948. The Palestinian Authority revealed that it was planning to seek the prosecution of Israel’s leaders for war crimes in the international courts.
The legal challenges follow a wave of Israeli attacks on schools, universities, mosques, hospitals and ambulances in the past few days. The army claims the attacks are justified because the sites are being used by Hamas fighters.
A petition to the Israeli courts was announced on Wednesday by Taleb al Sanaa, an Arab member of the Israeli parliament, over the shelling on Tuesday of a UN school in the Jabaliya refugee camp that killed at least 40 Palestinians sheltering there.
UN officials, noting that they had passed on the school’s GPS co-ordinates to Israel and that it was clearly marked with a UN flag, insisted that only civilians had sought refuge at the school. The UN has demanded an investigation.
Mr al Sanaa said the petition would name the prime minister, Ehud Olmert, the foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, and Ehud Barak, the defence minister, as the responsible parties. “Israel needs to decide whether it wants to be a terrorist organisation like Hamas or respect international law,” he said.
A further petition has been launched by eight Israeli human rights groups, demanding that Israel’s Supreme Court ban the army from targeting ambulances and medical personnel.
The petition cites a large number of cases in which Israel has fired on ambulances, arguing that as a result medics have been unable to treat the wounded or transport them to hospital.
Palestinian medics said 21 of their staff have been killed by Israeli fire and many more wounded, according to reports on Al Jazeera TV. The Al Durra hospital in Gaza City was hit on Tuesday, and a day later three mobile clinics run by a Danish charity, DanChurchAid, were destroyed.
The International Committee of the Red Cross dropped its usual diplomatic language this week in denouncing Israel’s refusal to allow medical teams to tend the wounded.
During a three-hour pause in the fighting on Wednesday rescuers managed to reach the Zaytoun neighbourhood, south-east of Gaza City, that was extensively bombed at the start of the week.
Four children were found close to starvation alongside 15 bodies, including those of their mothers. Many other civilians were found dead in the area, and others are believed still to be in hiding. Israeli tanks were stationed nearby the destroyed buildings during the whole period.
Pierre Wettach, a Red Cross spokesman, called Israel’s delay in allowing a medical evacuation “shocking” and “unacceptable”. He added: “The Israeli military must have been aware of the situation but did not assist the wounded.”
Physicians for Human Rights in Israel added its voice, criticising the Israeli authorities for repeatedly ignoring requests to move seriously wounded civilians.
The UN suspended its aid operations on Thursday after two of its drivers were killed and others wounded by Israeli fire directed at one of its relief convoys during another three-hour ceasefire.
John Ging, head of the UN relief agency in Gaza, said: “They were co-ordinating their movements with the Israelis, as they always do, only to find themselves being fired at from the ground troops.”
Palestinian sources and international observers warned that the death toll among civilians is rising rapidly as Israel’s ground invasion pushes deeper into Gaza.
Al Haq, a Palestinian legal rights group, warned that 80 per cent of the more than 750 Palestinians killed in the fighting so far have been civilians. According to figures cited by the World Health Organisation, at least 40 per cent have been children. Another 3,000 Gazans have been wounded.
Israeli commanders were reported in the Israeli media to be unsurprised by the heavy toll on civilians of their latest actions, saying their priority was to protect soldiers.
“For us, being cautious means being aggressive,” one told the Haaretz newspaper. “From the minute we entered, we’ve acted like we’re at war. That creates enormous damage on the ground.”
The newspaper said the government had taken into account the likely high number of Palestinian civilian casualties when it approved the ground operation a week ago.
Another soldier, identified as Lt Col Amir, told Israeli TV on Wednesday: “We are very violent. We are not shying away from any method of preventing casualties among our troops.”
Among the dubious tactics the army appears to be resorting to is use of white phosphorus shells, which burn intensely on exposure to air creating the firework-type explosions characteristic of Israel’s shelling of Gaza.
Although the shells produce dense clouds of smoke to cover military operations, they also cause severe burns on contact with skin.
Photographs of pale blue artillery shells lined up by tanks stationed on the edge of Gaza have been identified as American-made phosphorus munitions. Neil Gibson, a missiles expert for Jane’s, told the London Times that the shells were an “improved model” that burned for up to 10 minutes.
Although such shells are allowed when used solely as a smoke screen, they are banned as a chemical weapon if used as an anti-personnel munition. Palestinian and international medics in Gaza have reported large numbers of burns victims with injuries difficult to treat.
Yesterday, Amnesty International also accused Israeli soldiers of using Palestinian civilians as human shields – a charge Israel has repeatedly levelled against Hamas.
Malcolm Smart, a spokesman, said: “Israeli soldiers have entered and taken up positions in a number of Palestinian homes, forcing families to stay in a ground-floor room while they use the rest of their house as a military base and sniper position.”
Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.
A version of this article originally appeared in The National (www.thenational.ae), published in Abu Dhabi.
January 9-11, 2009
"We Are Very Violent"
Outcry Over Israel's War Crimes
By JONATHAN COOK
Nazareth.
Criticism by international watchdog groups over the increasing death toll in Gaza mounted this week as the first legal actions inside Israel were launched accusing the army of intentionally harming the enclave’s civilian population.
The petitions – over attacks on medical personnel and the shelling of United Nations schools in Gaza – follow statements by senior Israeli commanders that they have been using heavy firepower to protect soldiers during their advance on built-up areas. “We are very violent,” one told Israeli media.
There is also growing evidence that Israeli forces have been firing phosphorus shells over densely populated areas in a move that risks violating international law by inflicting burns on civilians.
The Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, meanwhile, called the events in Gaza a “new Nakba”, referring to the catastrophe that dispossessed the Palestinians in 1948. The Palestinian Authority revealed that it was planning to seek the prosecution of Israel’s leaders for war crimes in the international courts.
The legal challenges follow a wave of Israeli attacks on schools, universities, mosques, hospitals and ambulances in the past few days. The army claims the attacks are justified because the sites are being used by Hamas fighters.
A petition to the Israeli courts was announced on Wednesday by Taleb al Sanaa, an Arab member of the Israeli parliament, over the shelling on Tuesday of a UN school in the Jabaliya refugee camp that killed at least 40 Palestinians sheltering there.
UN officials, noting that they had passed on the school’s GPS co-ordinates to Israel and that it was clearly marked with a UN flag, insisted that only civilians had sought refuge at the school. The UN has demanded an investigation.
Mr al Sanaa said the petition would name the prime minister, Ehud Olmert, the foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, and Ehud Barak, the defence minister, as the responsible parties. “Israel needs to decide whether it wants to be a terrorist organisation like Hamas or respect international law,” he said.
A further petition has been launched by eight Israeli human rights groups, demanding that Israel’s Supreme Court ban the army from targeting ambulances and medical personnel.
The petition cites a large number of cases in which Israel has fired on ambulances, arguing that as a result medics have been unable to treat the wounded or transport them to hospital.
Palestinian medics said 21 of their staff have been killed by Israeli fire and many more wounded, according to reports on Al Jazeera TV. The Al Durra hospital in Gaza City was hit on Tuesday, and a day later three mobile clinics run by a Danish charity, DanChurchAid, were destroyed.
The International Committee of the Red Cross dropped its usual diplomatic language this week in denouncing Israel’s refusal to allow medical teams to tend the wounded.
During a three-hour pause in the fighting on Wednesday rescuers managed to reach the Zaytoun neighbourhood, south-east of Gaza City, that was extensively bombed at the start of the week.
Four children were found close to starvation alongside 15 bodies, including those of their mothers. Many other civilians were found dead in the area, and others are believed still to be in hiding. Israeli tanks were stationed nearby the destroyed buildings during the whole period.
Pierre Wettach, a Red Cross spokesman, called Israel’s delay in allowing a medical evacuation “shocking” and “unacceptable”. He added: “The Israeli military must have been aware of the situation but did not assist the wounded.”
Physicians for Human Rights in Israel added its voice, criticising the Israeli authorities for repeatedly ignoring requests to move seriously wounded civilians.
The UN suspended its aid operations on Thursday after two of its drivers were killed and others wounded by Israeli fire directed at one of its relief convoys during another three-hour ceasefire.
John Ging, head of the UN relief agency in Gaza, said: “They were co-ordinating their movements with the Israelis, as they always do, only to find themselves being fired at from the ground troops.”
Palestinian sources and international observers warned that the death toll among civilians is rising rapidly as Israel’s ground invasion pushes deeper into Gaza.
Al Haq, a Palestinian legal rights group, warned that 80 per cent of the more than 750 Palestinians killed in the fighting so far have been civilians. According to figures cited by the World Health Organisation, at least 40 per cent have been children. Another 3,000 Gazans have been wounded.
Israeli commanders were reported in the Israeli media to be unsurprised by the heavy toll on civilians of their latest actions, saying their priority was to protect soldiers.
“For us, being cautious means being aggressive,” one told the Haaretz newspaper. “From the minute we entered, we’ve acted like we’re at war. That creates enormous damage on the ground.”
The newspaper said the government had taken into account the likely high number of Palestinian civilian casualties when it approved the ground operation a week ago.
Another soldier, identified as Lt Col Amir, told Israeli TV on Wednesday: “We are very violent. We are not shying away from any method of preventing casualties among our troops.”
Among the dubious tactics the army appears to be resorting to is use of white phosphorus shells, which burn intensely on exposure to air creating the firework-type explosions characteristic of Israel’s shelling of Gaza.
Although the shells produce dense clouds of smoke to cover military operations, they also cause severe burns on contact with skin.
Photographs of pale blue artillery shells lined up by tanks stationed on the edge of Gaza have been identified as American-made phosphorus munitions. Neil Gibson, a missiles expert for Jane’s, told the London Times that the shells were an “improved model” that burned for up to 10 minutes.
Although such shells are allowed when used solely as a smoke screen, they are banned as a chemical weapon if used as an anti-personnel munition. Palestinian and international medics in Gaza have reported large numbers of burns victims with injuries difficult to treat.
Yesterday, Amnesty International also accused Israeli soldiers of using Palestinian civilians as human shields – a charge Israel has repeatedly levelled against Hamas.
Malcolm Smart, a spokesman, said: “Israeli soldiers have entered and taken up positions in a number of Palestinian homes, forcing families to stay in a ground-floor room while they use the rest of their house as a military base and sniper position.”
Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.
A version of this article originally appeared in The National (www.thenational.ae), published in Abu Dhabi.
Timeline of The Gaza War
Timeline of the Gaza War
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Timeline of the Gaza War. For events pertaining to the conflict which occurred before 27 December 2008, see Gaza War#Background and 2007–2008 Israel–Gaza conflict.
Contents
[hide]
* 1 Timeline
o 1.1 December
o 1.2 January
* 2 See also
* 3 References
[edit] Timeline
[edit] December
27 December 2008
Israeli armed forces began operations against Hamas and the rocket launchers at 11:30 a.m., December 27. More than 50 fighter jets and attack helicopters entered Gazan airspace. Palestinian sources claimed that Israeli forces were responsible for killing 225-292 Palestinians and wounding more than 1,000.[1][2][3] It was the most extensive attack on Gaza since 1967.[1] The IAF, which claimed that it was responding to Hamas rocket attacks on southern Israel,[4] dropped more than 100 bombs on 50 targets,[4] which reportedly included Hamas paramilitary bases, training camps, and underground Kassam launchers. Bombs were dropped on government offices, police stations, and the Hamas headquarters.
The aircraft used were F-16 fighter jets and AH-64 Apache helicopters.[5][6][7] About 140 members of Hamas security forces were killed, including police chief Tawfiq Jabber, the head of Hamas’ security and protection unit[8] and the police commander for central Gaza,[9] along with at least 15 civilians. Children were among the casualties.[8][10] The bombed areas included a ceremony for new police officers. About 40 graduates were killed.[11] A mosque in Gaza City was also targeted in the airstrikes and two Palestinians were killed.[12] Israeli military spokesmen claimed that the mosque was being used for "terrorist activities".[12]
Sixty Israeli planes also targeted Hamas security and military training compounds, as well as weapon storage buildings,[13][14] and dropped more than 100 tons of bombs. Some of the bombs used on 27 and 28 December were the U.S. built GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb, the first shipment of which arrived in Israel at the beginning of the month.[15]
Hamas later fired 700 rockets and mortars at Israel. One of the rockets hit the town of Netivot, killing an Israeli man, destroying a house and wounding six other people.[14][16] Another rocket hit a synagogue in the Eshkol Regional Council, injuring two men, one seriously.[17] In the evening, two men in the Israeli community of Mivtahim were injured from a direct hit of a Hamas rocket; one was seriously wounded.[citation needed]
According to United Nations officials, fuel deliveries to the Gaza Strip through the Nahal Oz crossing were suspended, with the last delivery taking place a day previous on 26 December.[18]
Many Palestinians refer to December 27 as the Massacre of the Black Saturday[3] as it produced the highest one-day death toll in 60 years of conflict.[19]
28 December 2008
Twenty-five airstrikes were carried out on Sunday by Israel, raising the number of casualties to 287 dead and 900 wounded.[20] According to the Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, Hamas refused to allow casualties to leave Gaza for medical treatment.[21] One rocket shot by an F-16 fighter jet on a mosque near Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, from which rockets were reported by Israeli media to be launched, killed four members of Hamas.[22][23] In Gaza City, five children from the same family were killed in an Israeli airstrike.[24] Israeli jets bombed tunnels in the Rafah area. These tunnels were reportedly used to smuggle civilian goods and weapons after Israel and Egypt imposed the blockade of Gaza in June 2007. [25] [26][27] The main road of Sallah el-Dein in northern Gaza Strip was bombed. The road leads to the towns of Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia and Jabalia. No injuries were reported in the bombing.
An Israeli air-to-ground rocket destroyed a metal workshop in northern Gaza City which, according to Israel, was used in manufacturing Qassam rockets fired at Israel. The Al-Noor organisation in Gaza City, belonging to the Hamas organization, was bombed, causing severe damage to the building.[28] The main building of the Hamas-owned Al-Aqsa TV station was struck.[29] The station continued broadcasting via a "mobile unit".[30] Aidan White, Secretary-General of the International Federation of Journalists condemned the destruction of the television station, stating that international law "forbids attacks on media installations, even when they are instruments of propaganda".[31] The IAF attacked Jabalia and northern Gaza killing two more people and wounding others.[32]
Al Saraya, a building in Gaza City which contained government offices, security offices and a prison, was attacked. Four people died.[32] A fuel lorry traveling in Rafah near the Egyptian border was destroyed, killing six people.[33] IDF also confirmed an attack on tunnels in Philadelphi Route and claimed successful destruction of 40 of them.[34] Missiles also hit near the Beit Hanoun City Hall.[35]
Rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip, the range of which were extended. Three rockets landed near the city of Ashdod – the fifth largest Israeli city and a main sea port.[36] The border with Egypt was breached and inhabitants from Gaza moved into Egypt. One Egyptian border policeman was killed by Palestinian gunmen, and several Palestinians were wounded by Egyptian gunfire and taken to hospital in Egypt.[37]
The United Nations Security Council held a closed door meeting convened at the request of Libya. The meeting lasted four hours,[38] and resulted in a press statement calling "on the parties to stop immediately all military activities ... [and] to address the serious humanitarian and economic needs in Gaza and to take necessary measures, including opening of border crossings."[39]
29 December 2008
Air strikes on the Strip continued. Just after midnight on 29 December, Israeli forces made six separate airstrikes against the Islamic University of Gaza, a "cultural symbol" of Hamas,[40][41] though the university had evacuated days in advance. According to The Jerusalem Post, the university hosts Hamas military laboratories under the auspices of professors and its buildings were used for storing rockets and explosives.[42] According to the IDF and the Shin Bet, one compound near the Islamic college, which was bombed twice, was being used as a chemical lab and as a Hamas explosives lab; Israel claimed that Hamas had been working to improve rockets and manufacture mortar shells.[43] Israel asserted that the university chemistry laboratory was a "fair target", even if it could not show conclusively that those inside the laboratory at the time of the attack where engaged in making weapons.[44]
The death toll rose to 415 that morning, as reported by the Associated Press. The Palestinian interior ministry in Gaza building was hit by Israeli missiles at dawn. The university and the ministry are both located in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood.[45]
A mosque in the Jabaliya refugee camp was also bombed by the IAF. The building was destroyed and five young girls whose house neighboured the mosque were killed.[46] Ziad Abu-Tir, a senior member of the Islamic Jihad's military wing was killed in a strike in the Khan Younis area.[47]
The International Red Cross reported that hospitals in the Gaza Strip were overwhelmed and unable to cope with the casualties.[48] Red Cross spokesman in Gaza Iyad Nasr said Gaza needed more supplies to be brought in urgently, "in particular the hospitals have been depleted and stretched to the maximum because of the closure imposed".[49] According to the IDF, Israel permitted a number of Turkish-donated ambulances from the West Bank to be transported to the Gaza Strip, as well as Red Cross, UNRWA, World Food Programme and Doctors Without Borders medical supplies.[50]
The Israeli city of Ashkelon was hit by a Grad rocket, killing an Israeli-Arab[51] construction worker and seriously wounding three other people.[46] Nahal Oz army base in Southern Israel was hit by mortar fire, killing one soldier, who was later identified as Lutfi Nasraldin. The attacks increased pressure on the government as the army amassed infantry and armored forces along the border.[52]
Israel's military intelligence chief claimed that Hamas' ability to fire rockets had been reduced by 50 percent, but that Hamas continued to command "some 20,000 fighters".[53]
The foreign ministry of Senegal reported that exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal was ready to sign an immediate ceasefire with Israel, provided Israel lifted its blockade on the Gaza Strip.[54]
On 29 December an IDF spokesperson confirmed for the first time that, apart from maintaining the naval blockade on Gaza, the Israeli Navy was taking an active part in the operation.[55] A video taken by the Israeli Navy and published on several news sites[56] showed the Israeli Navy attacking the Gaza coast line, using both Typhoon Weapon System and surface-to-surface missiles.
According to Haaretz, among the targets hit by the Israeli Navy were Ismayil Haniah's offices, several command and control centers used by Hamas, and a Hamas patrol boat.[56] On 31 December, the Israeli Navy "targeted a number of Hamas outposts and rocket launching sites", according to the IDF spokesperson.[57] On January 4, Israel extended the naval blockade from 6 to 20 nautical miles (11–37 km; 6.9–23 mi) to prevent all vessels from entering the Strip.[58]
Dignity incident
On 29 December 2008, the Free Gaza Movement motor yacht Dignity set course from Cyprus, carrying aid to Gaza.[59] The boat, which carried Irish human rights activist Caoimhe Butterly, former United States Representative and 2008 Green Party nominee for U.S. President Cynthia McKinney, journalists from Al Jazeera and CNN such as Karl Penhaul,[60] and three surgeons including Dr. Elena Theoharous, a member of the Cyprus Parliament,[61] attempted to enter the Gaza Strip, carrying 3.5 tonnes (3.9 short tons) of medical supplies.[59][62] Its passengers stated that several Israeli naval vessels approached their boat.[63] Free Gaza member David Halpin said that Israeli officers on board asked the captain to halt the Dignity's course to Gaza, but he refused.[64] According to CNN reporter Penhaul an Israeli vessel rammed the motor yacht, causing heavy damage.[60][63] Penhaul has admittedly stated he did not have a view of the Israeli vessel at the time.[65] Other passengers claimed that several Israeli vessels fired machine guns into the water.[63] The activists stated that their boat was clearly in international waters, about "70-80 miles"[62][66] or "90 miles"[63][67] from the Gaza Strip coast. McKinney claimed that the Israeli vessel had rammed the boat "approximately three times, twice in the front and once in the side".
Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor claimed that no shooting had occurred,[68] and that the motor yacht was inside Israeli territorial waters, and that the boat had failed to respond to Israeli naval radio contact.[63] Palmor claimed that the Dignity had crashed into an Israel vessel while attempting to outmanoeuvre it.[69][70] Palmor also claimed that the fact that the ship was carrying journalists, including a CNN crew that had already broadcast live three times, proved that the incident was a provocation on the part of the media.[70] Immediately after the incident, the boat turned back. Palmor stated that the naval ship offered to assist the passengers but that they had declined the offer.[71] Palmor also stated that Israeli ships escorted the damaged boat to Cypriot territorial waters.[71] It did not have enough fuel to return to Cyprus and ended up docking in Lebanon, where it was greeted with cheering crowds.[59][69]
Cypriot Foreign Minister Markos Kyprianou stated that Cyprus would lodge a formal complaint regarding the incident.[63] In a written statement, the Consulate General of Israel to the Southeast USA, based in Atlanta, Georgia, said that McKinney "has taken it upon herself to commit an act of provocation", endangering herself and the crew, and called her behavior "irresponsible".[60]
30 December 2008
Israeli air-strikes struck five ministerial buildings, another structure owned by Islamic University, a sports center, two Hamas training camps, the home of a senior Hamas commander (who was not present), and offices of the Popular Resistance Committees. 10 fatalities were reported.[72] The "whole compound" of ministerial buildings in Gaza City, including the Ministries of Finance, Interior and Education, were "completely destroyed" by 30 December.[73] The International Middle East Media Center stated that the ministries were "not 'terrorist' or military sites" and that the buildings were "civilian buildings that served the population in civil matters".[73] The premises of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (GCMHP) were destroyed.[74][75]
Gazans claimed that most Israeli strikes came without warning, but Israeli forces claimed that they offered "general" warnings by dropping leaflets and by interrupting radio broadcasts telling Gaza residents to flee their homes if they were hiding weapons or terrorists.[76] Amnesty International argued that "there are no 'safe' places in Gaza for civilians to seek shelter".[77]
Israel kept schools closed within a radius of about 50 km (24 miles) from the Gaza border, citing concerns about further rocket fire. Residents were told to remain indoors and on the alert for alarms heralding incoming rockets.[78] Hamas launched Chinese-made rockets at Beersheba, a city in southern Israel. A Grad missile landed in an empty kindergarten, causing damage.[79] 24 Qassam rockets and 11 mortars were fired into Israel, causing some damage but no injuries.[80]
Egypt said it would only fully open its border with the Gaza Strip if the crossing post were to come under the control of Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority.[81]
Israel had banned reporters from entering the Gaza strip since November 2008, citing security reasons. A petition made by 400 foreign journalists to enter the Gaza Strip was filed with Israel's supreme court.[82]
Israel permitted 100 trucks carrying humanitarian supplies to enter the Gaza Strip via the Kerem Shalom border crossing. Five ambulances donated by Turkey were also allowed entry.[83][84]
31 December 2008
Forty Palestinians, including at least five civilians, were killed during continued air strikes,[85] as UNRWA reported that at least 25 percent of the dead thus far in the conflict had been civilians.[86] Israel continued bombing, striking "dozens of targets" including smuggling tunnels along the Gaza–Egypt border.[85]
During the morning, two more rockets launched from Gaza hit the city of Beersheba; one of the rockets hit a school, causing severe damage to the building, but no casualties, as Israeli authorities instructed schools to remain closed. Two rockets landed in the Israeli city of Ashkelon, causing light injuries to two people; another rocket hit the town of Ofakim; several more landed around these cities and the cities of Kiryat Gat, Kiryat Malachi and Ashdod.[87] Altogether, more than 60 Katyusha and Qassam rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel.[88][89]
According to UN humanitarian coordinator Maxwell Gaylard, Gaza's hospitals were facing severe strain dealing with "their largest ever trauma caseloads under some of the most adverse conditions imaginable".[90] Douglas Alexander, Britain's International Development Secretary is quoted saying "Thousands are suffering. Medical items are in short supply. Fuel shortages have led to power cuts which in turn are affecting hospitals and other essential services. And UN stocks of food are very low. The limited aid that is getting through cannot be distributed properly because of bombing from the air and rocket attacks launched from inside Gaza".[91] A seriously injured six-year-old Palestinian boy was allowed to be transferred from Gaza to an Israeli children's hospital for treatment.[92]
Israel rejected international appeals proposed by the French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner to grant a 48-hour cease-fire, saying that conditions were not right for the ceasefire.[93][94] Meanwhile, Hamas spokesman Ayman Taha told the AFP agency that Hamas is open to any ceasefire proposition that will end the Israeli airstrikes and stop the Gaza blockade.[93] Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, threatened to halt peace talks if they go against the Palestinian interests and offer support for "aggression".[93]
In a briefing to the Israeli cabinet, Shin Bet Chief Yuval Diskin said that Hamas has suffered significant damages and its rule over Gaza has been compromised, and that many Hamas operatives are hiding in hospitals, posing as medical staff, or hiding in mosques and using them as headquarters, since they assumed Israel won't attack them there.[95] According to the Israeli air force, Hamas cells have been firing rockets from within densely populated areas and attempting to use Palestinian civilians as human shields. Cells have been detected in neighborhoods in Gaza City, Jabalya, Khan Younis and Rafah. The Israel Defense Forces has distributed flyers to the Palestinian population in Gaza, warning civilians not to stay close to any Hamas related buildings, for their own safety.[95] The Israeli Air Force bombed a Gaza Strip mosque. According to the IDF the mosque was used by Hamas as a storage site for missiles and explosive materials and that rocket cells were firing at Israel from the mosque area and from nearby sites. According to ynet, the attack on the mosque was carried out after legal consultation with IDF experts on international law.[96]
Israel's supreme court, in response to a court petition heard the previous day,[97] "gave the Israeli government until 10 a.m. Thursday to allow a small group of reporters into the Gaza Strip. The court warned that the reporters would be in the embattled area at their own risk".[97] The ruling "went against a government decision six weeks ago to keep foreign reporters out of Gaza until rockets fired against Israel were halted".[97]
Ninety-three trucks carrying medicine, medical supplies and food donated by Jordan and international organisations were allowed entry to the Gaza Strip, through the Kerem Shalom border crossing. The World Food Programme notified the IDF that it was not in need of any further food shipments, as its warehouses were filled to capacity.[98][99]
Top UN aid officials urged Israel to allow for the resumption of fuel deliveries into the Gaza Strip, noting that the fuel shortage resulting from the suspension of deliveries had caused the main power plant in Gaza to shut down on 30 December, affecting 350,000 people in Central and Northern Gaza, who live with 16 hours or more of powercuts per day.[18]
The United Nations Security Council met for two hours to hear statements from the Secretary General, the representatives of Palestine, Israel and the other members of the Council.[100]
[edit] January
1 January 2009
Israeli air strikes hit Gaza's parliament building, and the offices of the education and justice ministries, leaving four dead and 25 wounded.[101] A pre-dawn strike against the home of a Hamas operative resulted in the death of a Palestinian woman.[102] Palestinian reports also mention missiles landed on a workshop and several money changers' offices, one of which was close to a children's hospital, slightly damaging it. In Rafah, air strikes destroyed five smuggling tunnels and a police command center, while in Gaza City, an alleged weapons manufacturing center and storage facility was destroyed.[103] Dozens of Israelis received text messages from Hamas in the morning warning that the offensive on Gaza would only bring about massive rocket fire on Israel.[104] According to Israeli military sources, Hamas launched more than 50 rockets into Israel without causing casualties.[105] Rockets hit Beersheba and Ashdod, damaging a residential building in the latter city.[101]
An Israeli warplane dropped a one-ton bomb on the home of Nizar Rayan, a senior Hamas political leader, in the Jabaliya refugee camp, killing him, 9 women (including his four wives), his 11 children,[106] and wounding another 30.[107][108][109] As a liaison between the political and armed wings of Hamas and advocate of renewing suicide bombings, Rayan is the most senior political figure to be killed by Israel since 2004.[110] According to the IDF, Rayan's house was used as an arms cache, a communications headquarters and concealed a tunnel's opening.[111][112] The International Herald Tribune reported that among those killed were Rayan's four wives and nine of their twelve children.[107] On 2 January, the Times Online reports instead that two of his four wives and four of his 12 children were killed.[113] UN OCHA reports that 13 of his family members, including 11 of his children, were killed and 12 were injured.[114] There were reports that the family was warned by the IDF to leave the building but that they had refused to do so.[111][112] According to ynet, recent deliberations by the IDF resulted in a decision that striking homes used as weapons storages when sufficient warning is given to the residents falls within the boundaries of international law and is legitimate.[112] Rayan had sent his son to carry out a suicide attack in the community of Elei Sinai in 2001 in which two Israelis were killed, and was behind the bombing in the Ashdod Port in 2004 which left 10 Israelis dead.[112][115][116][117]
Ninety trucks carrying food and medical supplies provided by international organisations entered the Gaza Strip through the Kerem Shalom border crossing.[118] Egypt blocked the entry of humanitarian aid from Qatar to pass through the Rafah crossing, however, Israel announced it would allow several aircraft from Qatar to land in Israel and the aid will be sent by truck to Gaza.[119]
2 January 2009
Hamas called for a "Day of Wrath" against Israel, bringing thousands of protesters out onto the streets of Gaza and the West Bank.[120] Israeli air strikes on Friday targeted the homes of 20 Hamas officials,[121] including that of Imad Akel in Nuseirat and Mohammed Madhoun. One of the strikes in Khan Yunis killed five civilians.[122] Israel began to bomb the ground near its boundary in an attempt to clear it of landmines, increasing speculation that a ground offensive was imminent. Israel briefly opened the Erez crossing to allow about 440 residents with foreign passports to leave the Gaza Strip.[123] Foreign journalists continued to be barred entry to Gaza; those who had lined up at the Erez crossing intending to enter after a court decision supported their right to do so when the crossing is open, were turned back by Israeli authorities.[124] At around 10:45, in a repeat attack south-west of Deir al-Balah, an International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement ambulance, which had arrived to transport survivors following an initial attack, was destroyed by a second Israeli attack. The two crew members in the ambulance were injured and hospitalised.[125]
Throughout the day, thirty rockets were fired at Israel; three people were lightly injured, and several buildings sustained heavy damage.[126] In Jerusalem, men under the age of 50, or those who didn't hold Israeli ID were unable to access prayers in the Al-Aqsa Mosque.[114]
3 January 2009
Thirteen Palestinians, including six children, were killed and dozens wounded when the Israeli Air Force bombed the Maqadna Mosque in Beit Lahiya, in which about 200 people had gathered for evening prayers.[127] [128] Witnesses said over 200 Palestinians were praying inside at the time. [129] Another person was killed as the American International School in Gaza was destroyed. [130]
A senior commander of Hamas' armed wing, Abu Zakaria al-Jamal was killed.[131] He was commander of Gaza City's rocket-launching squads.[132] In another air strike, Jamal Mamduch, commander of the Gaza City battalion, was killed.[133] Many of the killed Hamas leaders died along with their families in their own homes.
At least 34 rockets were fired at Israel during the day, damaging several buildings, and lightly injuring one woman in Netivot. A number of Hamas rockets hit the city of Beersheba (population 186,000) in southern Israel, with one exploding on an empty school.[134] Four Israelis had been killed by rockets fired from Gaza since the beginning of IAF attacks.[127]
Israel launched its first artillery strikes. Israel had at this point carried out more than 700 strikes on Gaza since launching the offensive a week prior, according to AFP.
The UN warned of a worsening humanitarian crisis, and reported that at least 100 of the more than 400 Palestinians killed by Israel at this point were women and children.[127]
On the evening of 3 January, Israeli ground troops entered Gaza.[128][135] The intention of the ground invasion, according to the Israeli Defense Forces website, was to secure areas within the Gaza Strip from which rockets had been launched after previous Israeli operations.
The United Nations Security Council held another closed-door meeting which failed to produce an official statement or an on-the-record debate or vote on a resolution.[136] Speaking outside the meeting, the President of the General Assembly Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann said "Once again, the world is watching in dismay the disfunctionality of the Security Council."[137]
4 January 2009
Israeli ground troops entered Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza in the early hours.[138] Israeli forces bisected Gaza and surrounded Gaza City, but reportedly restricted their movements to areas that were not heavily urbanised.[139] The Israeli military said forty sites had been targeted, including targets for weapons depots and rocket launch sites. Despite a Supreme Court ruling to allow a limited number of journalists into the warzone, Israel refused to allow journalists into the area.[140] Heavy fighting was reported near Gaza City.[138] The IDF reported that 30 of its soldiers were wounded, 28 from a single mortar shell which landed next to a Golani regiment), with two out of those 30 badly injured. One later died of his wounds. The Israeli government also claimed to have killed at least 50 Hamas "terrorists" in the incursion and to have wounded dozens more.[141]The Israeli soldier killed was identified as 22 year old Sergeant Dvir Emanuelof.[142][143][144]Palestinian medical sources claimed that at least 21 Palestinians were killed in the fighting.[145] Additionally, Palestinian health ministry officials stated that at least 17 people were killed and 130 injured when Israeli shells fell near a school and the main market in Gaza City. A tank shell fired in northern Gaza killed 12 people, apparently including civilians. An Israeli missile hit a house in the Shuja'iyya neighborhood, killing a mother and her four children. In the morning, an ambulance operating out of Al-Awda hospital in the northern city of Beit Lahiya was shelled, seriously injuring 4 medical staff.[146] At least 41 rockets and mortars were fired into Israel.[147] Three Israeli civilians were lightly wounded.[148]
Three senior Hamas leaders were killed on Sunday: Hussam Hamdan, who according to the IDF was responsible for the organisation's rocket fire and the man behind the firing of Grad missiles towards the cities of Beersheba and Ofakim; Muhammad Hilou, who according to the IDF was responsible for Hamas' special forces in Khan Younis and for the firing of long-range rockets; and Mohammed Shalpokh, who commanded Hamas forces in Rafah.[145][149][150][151]
Also on January 4, the director of Israel's internal security agency, the Shin Bet, told the cabinet that Hamas leaders both at home and in exile felt that their organisation was facing an "existential threat" and was "willing to reach an agreement" on a ceasefire. However, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said that Israel did not intend to conclude a "diplomatic product" with Hamas. Such a move had been avoided in the past out of fear of legitimising Hamas as a negotiating partner.[citation needed]
Hamas sources told The Jerusalem Post that members of al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, the Popular Resistance Committees, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine were participating in the fighting against the IDF, and that they were making use of U.S. and Israeli weapons confiscated from members of Fatah in the 2007 Battle of Gaza.[152]
According to medical sources, the total Palestinian death toll for the day was 42, most of them civilians.[153]
Fatah officials in Ramallah told The Jerusalem Post that Hamas militiamen had been assaulting many Fatah activists since the beginning of the operation last Saturday. They said at least 75 activists were shot in the legs while others had their hands broken. Meanwhile, sources close to Hamas revealed over the weekend that the movement had "executed" more than 35 Palestinians who were suspected of collaborating with Israel and were being held in various Hamas security installations.[154]
The New York Times reported that Israelis fired tank shells into a house in the Tuffah district,[155] and that early on the 4th, in the crowded Shati refugee camp near the coast, a shell fired from a navy ship hit another house; there were no survivors.[155]
Zeitoun incident
The Daily Telegraph reported that in the Zeitoun district, early in the morning of January 4, Israeli troops evacuated about 110 members of the Samouni, an extended family clan, into a Samouni-owned warehouse, where they waited without running water or food for 24 hours. Starting at 6:35am on the 5th, the house was repeatedly shelled. Some were killed inside the building by falling masonry; although the rest attempted to flee the building, the majority of the dead were killed outside, by shrapnel.[156] Initial reports were of 60 to 70 killed;[156] the UN count of the total killed was 30, with 11 Samouni family members dead.[157] A few survivors, some wounded, others carrying some of the dead or dying, managed to reach Gaza's main north-south road where passing cars stopped to take them to the hospital. A Red Crescent volunteer said that injured people were left behind: "we could not get to them and it was no longer safe for us to stay."[156] According to the Red Cross, ambulances were not given permission to enter the neighborhood to retrieve the injured from the building until a day later.[158][159] The United Nations confirmed these reports on January 9[157] Three children later died after they were transported to hospital.[160] Reports of the incident were given to the media by Norwegian doctors stationed in the Shifa Hospital, Gaza, as early as Tuesday, January 5.[161]
B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, alleged that Israeli forces had not done their duty to prevent civilian casualties by assisting the wounded. 48 hours after the attack, ICRC ambulances searching 100 yards from where Israeli soldiers were stationed found four children, too weak to move, that had taken refuge near corpses believed to be those of their family.[162][162] "The ICRC believes that in this instance the Israeli military failed to meet its obligation under international humanitarian law to care for and evacuate the wounded," said a statement from the International Red Cross and Red Crescent, and called the delay considers the delay in granting access "unacceptable".[162]
Other buildings were reported as being shelled during the incident,[157][163] and IDF infantry reportedly fired on an occupied house[158] The survivors of the incident were treated at Shifa hospital, Gaza.[163]
The IDF stated that it had no knowledge of the incident, and that "IDF forces had not yet reached the areas in question" by January 4.[164] An Israeli army spokesman said there was no record of a "specific attack on a specific target", nor had the army massed civilians in specific locations. "This does not rule out exchanges of fire but it does rule out targeting of a specific building," he said.[159] Israel said there is not a humanitarian crisis in Gaza and that it is working with international agencies and doing what it can to reduce civilian casualties.[162]
The UN's OCHA said that if it was true it was "one of the gravest incidents" in the conflict,[165] and called for an investigation into the incident, but did not make any "accusations of deliberate action" at the time. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navanethem Pillay, said the Zeitoun Samouni incident "appears to have all the elements of war crimes."[157][162] Pillay called for "credible, independent and transparent" investigations into possible violations of humanitarian law.[166]
5 January 2009
As Israeli tanks and troops seized control of large parts of the Gaza Strip, tens of thousands of Gazans fled their homes amidst artillery and gunfire, and flooded into the heart of Gaza City.[167] Gun battles reportedly broke out between Israel and Hamas on the streets of Gaza, as Israeli forces surrounded the city.[153][168] BBC reporters stated that the battles were preventing essential medical supplies from reaching hospitals and casualties.[169]
An airstrike hit an ambulance, killing three paramedics.[170] Israeli tank shelling killed at least 24 civilians in the Gaza Strip,[171] 13 of them children.[172] A family of seven were killed by an Israeli airstrike in al-Shati Camp east of Gaza City.[169] In Gaza's Zaytun neighborhood, seven members of another family were killed and in separate incident, a pregnant Palestinian woman and her four children were killed.[173]
Media reported that Israel was using the controversial substance white phosphorous over civilian targets during the course of its military operation.[174][175][176] Some media reported that Israel used the substance as a smokescreen.[177][178][179] Israel used white phosphorus in Lebanon in 2006, and the UK and the US have used it elsewhere. Israel denied using the substance.[174][180] According to Ha'aretz and the UN humanitarian chief, Israel had also used cluster bombs.[181][182]
Hamas said it would send a delegation to Egypt for talks, as France spearheaded diplomatic efforts to obtain a 48-hour truce.[153] Israel continued to refuse to let journalists enter the Gaza Strip, despite a ruling from the Israeli Supreme Court to admit a limited number of reporters.[169]
Over 40 Qassam and Grad rockets were fired from Gaza at southern Israel striking Ashkelon, Ashdod, Sderot, Kiryat Malakhi, near Ofakim, Netivot and Beersheba. Hamas also fired rockets at the area between Ashdod and Gedera.
Hamas claimed to have killed 9 Israeli fighters.[183] Hamas also claimed to have captured two Israeli soldiers. Israel dismissed the claims, accusing Hamas of engaging in "psychological warfare".[184] By evening, the Israeli Defense Forces claimed that during the course of the day they had killed between 80-100 Hamas fighters in ground fighting, and that a further 100 "wanted gunmen" had been taken prisoner. Palestinian cells fired nearly 40 rockets and mortar shells at Israel, injuring four Israelis.[185][186]
An IDF spokesperson stated that three Israeli soldiers were killed in a friendly fire incident[187] after erroneously identifying Israeli soldiers as "terrorists."[188] About 20 soldiers were injured in the incident.[189] Another IDF officer was reported killed in a separate friendly fire incident. [190]
UN officials published a report which stated that an Israeli airstrike on the grounds of a UN school, which was serving as a makeshift refugee camp for hundreds of displaced Palestinians, killed three Palestinian men.[191] An official from the Danish charitable organization DanChurchAid reported that three mobile clinics set up to help hospitals in Gaza cope with the wounded were bombarded in Israeli airstrikes, despite being clearly marked as humanitarian vehicles.[192]
A total of 30 Palestinian civilians were known to have been killed on January 5, and the total Palestinian death toll at the end of the day was 540,[193] until details of the Samouni family incident (below) emerged several days later.
6 January 2009
According to Palestinian sources, 20 people were killed in a number of IDF attacks. Medical workers reported that an attack on Deir al-Balah and the Bureij refugee camp killed ten Palestinians, including a father and his three children. An IDF soldier was killed and four wounded in an ambush in northern Gaza City.[194]The IDF soldiers returned fire, killing all of the Hamas fighters. The IDF soldier killed was identified as Alexander Mashevitzky. According to YNET, the head of Hamas' artillery forces and a senior member of Hamas' military wing, Ayman Siam, were both hit and believed to have been killed in an aerial attack in the Jabaliya neighborhood in the northern Gaza Strip.[195][195]
At least 30 rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza.[196] Gedera, 30 kilometers (19 mi) south of Tel Aviv, was hit for the first time.[197] A Grad rocket landed near a house, lightly injuring a 3-month old girl.[196]
"There's nowhere safe in Gaza", said John Ging, the UN's senior official in Gaza. "Everyone is terrorized and traumatized." He spoke of 1 million Palestinians without electricity and 700,000 without water, challenging world leaders to undergo similar privations until they had stopped the fighting: "You are not to sleep, eat or drink until you stop the killing of innocent people in the Gaza Strip". [198]
Israel continued to refuse foreign journalists' access to the Gaza Strip. The continuing ban on foreign media access drew criticism from journalists that Israel was trying to "manage" the story. Israel claimed that opening border crossings for journalists would endanger staff at the terminals. While the Associated Press and some other news organizations have Palestinian reporters, photographers and cameramen based in Gaza, many media outlets have no reliable source of independent information.[199]
Medics report that an Israeli airstrike on a 4-story building in Gaza City the night before had killed 12 members of the same extended family; the bodies of 7 children aged one to twelve years old, 3 women and 2 men from the Daya family were pulled from the rubble on Tuesday.[200][201]
Senior Israeli defense officials claimed that Hamas had set up independent hospitals, and had stolen Israeli aid supplies. [202]
A senior IDF officer claimed that "tunnels, weapons, anti-aircraft missiles, grenades, explosive devices, and weapons prepared for future attacks, such as motorbikes intended for kidnapping," had been found; the officer also stated that booby-trapped homes had been encountered, and that a booby-trapped mosque had been blown up.[203]
The United Nations Security Council held a four hour meeting in New York attended by Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian National Authority, the UN Secretary-General, David Miliband (foreign secretary of the United Kingdom), and Condoleezza Rice (US Secretary of State), where all sides stated their view of the situation.[204]
UNRWA school Incident
See article:Al-Fakhura school incident
Palestinian medics in Gaza stated, and news agencies worldwide reported, that 43 people were killed in an Israeli strike on an UNRWA school.[205][206] The UN clarified in February that the shells had struck outside the school, not within the compound. Maxwell Gaylord (the UN humanitarian coordinator in Jerusalem) said that the UN "would like to clarify that the shelling and all of the fatalities took place outside and not inside the school."[207][208] John Ging, UNRWA's operations director in Gaza stated he had been misquoted by the Jerusalem Post and other newspapers as saying that shells had hit the school, and that the UNRWA's earliest report on January 6 was correct in saying that shells had hit outside it.[209]
Two tank shells exploded outside the school, spraying shrapnel on people inside and outside the building, where at least 350 Palestinians had sought refuge from fighting between Israelis and Palestinians.[210][211] The strike took place near the Al-Fakhura school in Jabaliya in northern Gaza and was the third deadly Israeli attack near United Nations-run schools on 6 January.[212]
The IDF said mortars from inside the school were fired at Israeli forces, and that Israeli soldiers were responding to them.[213][214] The IDF also stated that bodies of militants were found inside the school afterwards.[213] Time magazine reported, "The IDF gave the names of two Hamas combatants it says were killed inside the school — Imad and Hassan Abu Askar — who allegedly fired the mortars. But the IDF did not explain how it was able to identify them among the many casualties. Troops did not visit the school after the attack, nor did the IDF have access to a casualty list from Gaza's hospitals."[215]. Nevertheless, Col. Moshe Levi (head of the IDF's Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration) said, in February 2009, that 12 were the Palestinians killed in the incident - nine Hamas operatives and three noncombatants[216].Hamas rejected the claims of any fire from the school, calling them "baseless".[217]
UNRWA spokesperson Christopher Gunness stated that the IDF later admitted in closed-door meetings that the fire they responded to was from outside the school.[218] He noted that the UN buildings that had been fired upon displayed the UN flag, and that the UN had provided GPS coordinates of UN schools sheltering civilians to the IDF.[218][219] Days earlier Gunness had said that the UNRWA was "99.9% certain" that there were no terrorists or military activity in the school, adding that this "does not necessarily contradict Israel's claim that the militants were operating close by".[220]
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was said by an aide to be investigating the option of bringing the incident before international courts.[221]
The day of the attack, the UN requested an inquiry into both the assault and the Israeli allegations about terrorists firing from its schools. Ban Ki Moon condemned the attack, saying it was "totally unacceptable."[222]
7 January 2009
At least 12 Palestinians were killed in fresh strikes in the Gaza Strip. At least 15 rockets hit Israel, causing no casualties.[205]
Following the strikes, Israel initiated a three-hour "humanitarian" truce. The Israeli army refrained from attacks from 1 to 4 pm, though there were reports of exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and Hamas during that period. During the temporary truce, 80 aid trucks were allowed to enter the Strip, some of which delivered industrial fuel to Gaza's power plant. Access was granted to previously closed regions, to allow residents access to supplies. According to Israeli sources, they planned to repeat this move daily. Fighting resumed immediately following the end of the truce.[223]
Despite the parties’ agreement to halt fighting during aid deliveries, a UN convoy was fired upon, killing two aid workers. The UN initially blamed Israeli tank fire, though an Israeli investigation later cleared the IDF of responsibility. UN sources subsequently admitted "that they were not sure in which direction the truck was headed when it was hit, and could also not say with certainty that tank shells were responsible."[224] As a result of the incident, the UN briefly suspended aid shipments but resumed them on January 9 after receiving assurances from Israel that they were not being targeted.[225][226]
8 January 2009
At least two dozen Israeli airstrikes were reported, in which at least 4 Palestinians were killed and at least 22 wounded.[227] UN officials said at least one driver in a UN aid convoy was killed after the convoy was fired upon by Israeli forces.[228] The UN claimed the attack happened in spite of co-ordinating its movements with the IDF. It subsequently said it would suspend all relief activities in Gaza until it had received guarantees of the safety of its staff from Israel.[229][230]
Israel announced the deaths of three soldiers: Roi Rosner, Amit Robinson, and Omer Rabinovitch, bringing the total number of soldiers killed to eight.[227][231]Israel also claimed to have killed many Hamas fighters.
Three Katyusha rockets from Lebanon territory were fired at the northern Israeli city of Nahariyya. Two civilians were injured. The IDF returned fire at the launch sites in southern Lebanon. No one claimed responsibility for the attack.[232]
The United Nations Security Council met and passed a resolution "stressing the urgency of and calls for an immediate, durable and fully respected ceasefire, leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza", and welcoming the Egyptian initiative, among other points.[233] While the United States abstained on the vote, Condoleezza Rice explained to the Council that the U.S. thought it important to see the outcomes of the Egyptian mediation efforts in order to see what the resolution might have been supporting, but that "after a great deal of consideration, we decided that the resolution -- the text of which we support, the goals of which we support and the objectives of which we fully support -- should indeed be allowed to go forward."[citation needed]
The order to abstain on the resolution, which U.S. diplomats had helped to draft, reportedly came at the last minute from President Bush, following pressure from the Israeli government, who issued a statement that the resolution was "not practical".[234] In an unusually public rebuke, the Israeli Prime Minister boasted of how he had phoned up President Bush while Bush was in the middle of a speech, and how the incident left Rice "pretty embarrassed".[235]
9 January 2009
The Israeli offensive continued, despite the passing of a UN Security resolution calling for an immediate and durable ceasefire.
Israel dismissed the Security Council resolution as "impractical": Ehud Olmert's office said that more Hamas rockets "only prove that the U.N.'s decision is not practical and will not be kept in practice by the Palestinian murder organizations." [236]
Hamas objected to not being consulted during the drafting of the resolution: "Nobody consulted Hamas or talked to Hamas. Nobody put Hamas in the picture and yet Hamas is required to accept it. This is unacceptable," Mohammed Nazzal, a senior Hamas official based in Syria, told Al-Arabiya television.[236]
At least 30 rockets were fired at southern Israel.[237] Hamas claimed to have hit the Tel Nof airbase, some 27 kilometers (17 mi) from Tel Aviv, which, if true, would make it the farthest strike to date.[238] Hamas also announced that Mahmoud Abbas' term as President had expired, and that while they do not expect Abbas to step down while the war continues in Gaza, they no longer recognize his legitimacy. Abbas responded that he still had another year, citing a law that says presidential and parliamentary elections should be held at the same time.[239]
Condoleezza Rice said that it was "difficult" to protect civilians in a place as densely populated as Gaza — an area 25 miles long and roughly six miles wide.[236] A UN report on Gaza noted that "the borders are closed, making this one of the rare conflicts where civilians have no place to flee."[219]
A three-hour truce took place on January 9. Palestinians fired three Grad-type rockets at Ashdod, shortly after 1 pm, the truce's start-time. While supplies were being transferred through Kerem Shalom border crossing, Palestinians fired several mortar shells at the terminal. No casualties were reported.[240]
The UN said its aid workers would resume movement, having received assurances from Israel that they were not being targeted.[226]
At around 23:00, an Israeli drone destroyed a Norwegian People's Aid (NPA) car that was clearly marked with the NPA logo, outside the home of an NPA employee, Mahmoud Hamada, at al-Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza. Nobody was injured. Surrounding buildings were severely damaged. The Secretary-General of NPA, Petter Eide, said that there are no military targets in the area. Raymond Johansen of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that the incident was a "clear violation of international law."[241][242]
10 January 2009
No rockets were fired into Israel overnight, a sharp drop from the dozens of projectiles that were launched in the early days of the offensive; during the morning, three rockets struck the southern city of Ashkelon, lightly wounding two people. Six additional rockets landed in open areas, with no casualties.[236][243]
The Israeli military said that in Gaza it had killed more than 15 terrorists and that IDF aircraft had attacked more than 40 targets throughout Gaza striking ten rocket-launching sites, weapons-storage facilities, smuggling tunnels, an anti-aircraft missile launcher and gunmen. Although Palestinian hospital officials could confirm only four deaths they also stated that fighting has hindered paramedics from collecting bodies and treating the wounded. Palestinian medical officials said that eight people were killed by Israeli tank fire Saturday in the town of Jebailiya and the dead appeared to be civilians per paramedics on the scene.[236]
The Israeli military said it would halt the fire in Gaza for three hours on Saturday to allow the territory's besieged residents to leave their homes and stock up on supplies. Medics use the lull to rescue casualties in areas of fighting, and aid groups also rush through food distribution.[236]
The Palestinian Authority president urged both Israel and Hamas to agree to an Egypt-brokered truce Saturday, but he singled out Israel, saying it would be responsible for a "waterfall of blood" if it didn't accept the deal.[244]
On January 10 the IDF stated that Hamas fighters are suffering from exhaustion. An IDF military commander said that Hamas terrorists are beginning to desert battle and refuse orders. Israeli military claims that Hamas younger operatives refused to venture outside to lob mortars against Israeli forces, prompting a senior Hamas leader, Amir Mansi, to operate the mortar himself. After IDF soldiers identified the source of fire, they shot and killed Mansi, wounding two others involved in the attack. Amir Mansi has been reported as an expert in the Grad rocket launching program, having been trained by Hezbollah. Also, the IDF stated that more than 300 Hamas fighters have been killed so far in the operation, the highest estimate so far, and at least 120 have been captured.[245] According to the reports, entire Hamas companies have been eliminated by the Israeli forces. A senior Israeli officer said that "complete battalions that have just been erased", adding that Hamas fighters are afraid to come out to fight, with many going AWOL and abandoning the battlefield.[246]
11 January 2009
The IAF attacked overnight a mosque in the town of Rafah, which according to Israel was being used as a Hamas training camp, a meeting place and a weapons cache. The IDF reported that the mosque contained machine-guns and anti-aircraft missiles.[247]
Israeli and Palestinian officials report that at least 40 Hamas gunmen were killed in a battle with IDF soldiers in the Gaza City neighborhood of Sheikh Ajalin. According to reports, Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists ambushed IDF forces in Sheikh Ajalin, which lead to "some of the heaviest fighting" since phase two of the operation began.[248] Palestinians reported that four people had been killed in the northern town of Beit Lahiya. The IDF reported hitting dozens of gunmen across the Gaza Strip on January 10 and 11.[247] Additionally, the IAF reported that Hamas operatives have tried to shoot down an IAF fixed wing aircraft with anti-aircraft missiles for the first time since operation in Gaza begun.[249]
Two rockets landed in the city of Beersheba, a half an hour before the city's high schools were to reopen after being closed for more than 10 days. Some 65% of Beersheba's 11 and 12th graders (about 2.700 students) were to return to school and study in bomb shelters.[250]
Three Palestinians were killed (two terrorists and one woman) in southern Gaza Strip. Dozens were injured in attacks near the village of Khouza to the east of Khan Younis. Palestinian medics in the area said that the injured suffered from burns and gas inhalations, symptoms indicating exposure to white phosphorus. Israel rejected the claim.[251]
There have been rumors circulating in the Egyptian media that IAF strikes have wounded the captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. A spokesman of Hamas politburo, Moussa Abu Marzuk, said that Shalit's condition is no longer a concern for Hamas. An Israeli Defense Ministry official dismissed the comments as "psychological warfare".[252] Vice Premier Haim Ramon in an interview with Army Radio added that Hamas is using Shalit as a "bargaining chip" hoping for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the captured soldier.[253]
On January 11, the IDF started to deploy thousands of reservists into the Gaza Strip for the first time since Israeli offensive against Hamas begun 16 days ago. The Israeli government announced that it had approved tens of thousands of call-ups of its reserve forces before the ground operation started on the 3rd of January. The troops have been refreshing on their urban training since then, and the bulk of the fighting has been done by Golani and Givati brigades. Analysts comment that this suggests Israel is intensifying its military efforts against Hamas.[248][254]
An Israeli patrol came under fire on the Syrian border on Sunday. The soldiers did not return fire and no casualties were reported, although the vehicle they were traveling in sustained damage. The IDF assessed that the Syrian army was not involved, believing it was Palestinians protesting the Gaza operation. It was the second cross-border attack in three days after three Katyusha rockets slammed into northern Israel on January 8 from Lebanon. Israel filed a complaint to the UNDOF in Syria which sent a team to investigate the reports.[255][256]
The IDF reported that it had uncovered an explosive device rigged with a timer that was hidden in a Palestinian school. A fuse attached to the explosives extended to a zoo located dozens of yards away. The soldiers managed to neutralize the bomb before it went off. According to the IDF, numerous weapons, including RPG launchers, grenades and AK-47 assault rifles were found inside the school.[257][258]
In the afternoon, during the "humanitarian corridor" - a time in which the Israeli army holds it fire and allows civilians in Gaza to receive aid - Hamas terrorists fired several rocket barrages. A rocket fired from the northern Gaza Strip hit a wall surrounding a kindergarten in Ashdod. There were no reports of damage or injury, but a few people were treated for shock. Other rockets were fired at Ashkelon, Sderot, Kiryat Malachi, and Eshkol Regional Council.[259]
12 January 2009
The IDF reported on January 12 that four soldiers were wounded, one seriously. The troops were part of a paratrooper unit that was operating in northern Gaza. The military said they launched an inquiry whether this incident was caused by friendly fire.[260] According to previous reports friendly fire has so far killed four soldiers in separate incidents on January 5.[187][190] Hamas' armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigade, claimed to have destroyed two Israeli tanks in the Gaza City neighborhood of Zeitun, and that they killed many soldiers in the village of Khuzaa, near the Israeli border. The Israeli army refuted these claims. [261]
Another paratrooper unit discovered and eventually destroyed a tunnel in Gaza that, according to the IDF, was meant to transfer suicide bombers into Israel. The tunnel was found some 300 meters from the fence on the border with Israel. It was also reported that the soldiers shot and killed a female would-be suicide bomber.[260] During the day the military, backed by the IAF, targeted over 25 sites on Monday, including tunnels and weapon caches, killing 9 Palestinians, five of whom, according to Palestinian officials, were civilians.[262]
US President George W. Bush threw his support behind Israel once more on January 12. The President was quoted with saying that he believes a sustainable ceasefire will only be achieved if Hamas stops firing rockets at Israel and that it is solely Hamas' choice to make. He reiterated Israel's right to defend herself but hoped she "continued to be mindful of the innocent folk" and help with humanitarian aid transfer into Gaza.[263] Meanwhile it was reported that Hamas raided over 100 trucks with humanitarian aid meant for civilians and sold it to the highest bidder. Israeli forces stopped several attempts to smuggle prohibited goods into Israel, namely electronics, since Defense Minister Ehud Barak said they do not classify as humanitarian aid. Israel still allows certain repair items to flow into Gaza to repair the damaged electric grid.[264]
Israel is considering establishing a field hospital outside of the Gaza Strip to facilitate medical aid for Palestinians civilians wounded in the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Under the plan, Israel is also considering bringing the facility inside the Palestinian territory to make it more accessible for the Palestinians seeking treatment. The hospital would be run by the IDF Medical Corps. Throughout the conflict, IDF has allowed the passage of over 900 trucks and facilitated with the transfer of over 20,000 tons of basic food and supplies.[264]
As the Palestinian death toll exceeded 900, in a statement the IDF said it believes 400 of those are known Hamas fighters, adding that a "significant number are also Hamas operatives" in the remaining 500 dead.[264]
13 January 2009
Israel's land, sea and air bombardment continues for an 18th day, with shelling and air raids hitting Gaza City, Rafah and elsewhere. Israel's military says it hit 60 targets overnight. Ground troops advance into the southern and eastern suburbs of Gaza City. The Israeli military says an officer and two soldiers are injured by an explosion in a booby-trapped house in the northern Gaza Strip.[265]
An unidentified gunman opened fire at an Israeli Border Guard patrol from the Jordanian side of the border north of Eilat early Tuesday morning. The Border Guards returned fire. No one was injured in the incident, the first such shooting in more than a decade.[266]
14 January 2009
Israel's bombardment continues for a 19th day, with overnight air raids on 60 targets, including 35 weapons-smuggling tunnels on the border with Egypt and an unknown number of rocket-launching sites. One air strike damages a cemetery in Gaza City. Israel was targeted from the Lebanese border. Israeli troops counterattacked.[265] No casualties were reported on either side. A message, allegedly by Osama Bin Laden, was released declaring Jihad on Israel.[267]
It is reported by several people, journalist and doctors that the Israeli army fired upon the UNRWA compound, schools, ambulances, hospitals and media offices. In response to this, Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary general, has started a protest. [268][269] [270][271]
15 January 2009
Israeli tanks and troops advance deep into Gaza City after an intense bombardment in the early hours, sending hundreds of terrified civilians into the streets to try to flee the fighting. Tonnes of aid go up in flames after Israeli artillery shells hit a UN compound. The Quds hospital is evacuated because of a fire caused by a tank shell. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon meets Israeli leaders to push for a ceasefire. He says the death toll, put at 1,100 by Gaza medical officials, has reached an "unbearable point".[265]
Two rockets fired by Gaza militants on Thursday hit Be'er Sheva, wounding five people, including a 7-year-old boy who was seriously hurt. One of the rockets landed directly on a car.[272]
In a battle near Jebaliya, an IDF soldier was killed and another was severely wounded. The IAF attacked over 15 sites, including rocket-launching sites and squads, armed gunmen, and a smuggling tunnel. The IDF also said that 40 Hamas operatives have been killed overnight.[273]
Three senior members of Hamas, Said Seyam, the Hamas interior minister and his brother Ayad Seyam and an unidentified person was killed in a IAF strike on Ayad Seyam's house. 20 other people were reportedly injured in the same strike.[274] Palestinian sources said that the head of Islamist terrorist group's security apparatus, Salah Abu Shreh, and its military commander in Gaza City, Mahmoud Watfah, were also killed in the attack. Hamas, despite the truce proposal, vowed revenge for the assassination of Seyam, who was one of the masterminds of the 2007 coup against the ruling party, Fatah and was the number three most sought Hamas leader after Ismail Haniyeh and Mahmoud Zahar. Shin Bet security agency, the Israeli equivalent of the CIA, were responsible for the intelligence leading to the airstrike that killed Seyam.[275]
16 January 2009
The bodies of 23 Palestinians were pulled from the rubble in the Tel al-Hawa district of Gaza City after Israeli tanks withdraw in the pre-dawn hours. Palestinian medics say at least 1,155 Palestinians have died over the past three weeks.[276]
Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip on Friday, January 16, fired over 15 rockets at southern Israel, leaving five Israelis wounded: a pregnant woman was hospitalized in Ashkelon after her home suffered a direct hit from a rocket; two were wounded in Ashdod - one moderately and the other lightly; earlier three Israelis sustained light wounds when two Grad rockets struck the southern town of Kiryat Gat; five rockets exploded in the Eshkol region in the morning.[277]
17 January 2009
More than 50 air strikes were carried out in Gaza overnight, ahead of the expected vote by Israel's cabinet on a proposal for a ceasefire. Heavy explosions echoed south of Gaza City.
United Nations officials say two children, aged five and seven, were killed when Israeli tank fire hit a UN school where hundreds had taken shelter in the northern town of Beit Lahiya. A UN spokesman, Chris Gunness, said an investigation ought to be held "to determine whether a war crime has been committed". Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor rejected the call, saying: "There's not the slightest piece of evidence to support such allegations." [265]
18 January 2009
Israel implemented a unilateral cease-fire early Sunday and in announcing the cease-fire late Saturday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel had achieved its goals and more, stating that "Hamas was hit hard, in its military arms and in its government institutions. Its leaders are in hiding and many of its men have been killed." According to Olmert's statement, the cease-fire went into effect at 2 a.m. local time (00.00 GMT) with the IDF warning that attacks on soldiers or civilians "will be met with a harsh response." If Hamas holds its fire, the military "will weigh pulling out of Gaza at a time that befits us," Olmert said. If not, Israel "will continue to act to defend our residents."[278]
The first death after the cease-fire was a Palestinian farmer who was shot dead by Israeli soldier while checking his farm in Khan Younis, on January 18 morning. The Israeli army said they shot the farmer because he was approaching land occupied at that moment by Israeli ground troops.[279]
Hamas fired ten rockets into Southern Israel, Israel responded with airstrikes.[280]
Hamas made a televised announcement of a ceasefire issuing their own demands of Israeli withdrawal within a week, reopen Gaza border crossings, and provide aid.[280]
20 January 2009
On Tuesday afternoon, Gaza gunmen fired at IDF patrols in two separate incidents near the Kissufim border crossing, in central Gaza, and in southern Gaza - IDF returned fire. No one was wounded and no significant damage was reported.[281][282] Also, eight mortar shells were fired from the central Gaza Strip. Most shells apparently landed in Palestinian areas. IAF targeted and hit one of the mortar launchers.[281][283] Shelling of mortars continued Tuesday night and 3-4 shells were fired at Eshkol Regional Council. No casualties were reported.[284] On the same day, another Palestinian farmer was shot dead by the IDF while approaching his farm in Jabalia and two children were killed in an explosion of an Israeli bomb left behind in Gaza City.[285][286]
21 January 2009
Early in the day, Israel said it had completed its troop pull-out from Gaza. [287]
22 January 2009
In the wake of the conflict, Hamas is accusing rival Palestinian faction Fatah of spying for Israel. Fatah denies spying on Hamas for Israel, and party leaders said Thursday that at least 175 of their members had been rounded up and tortured in recent days.[288]
Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Gaza_War
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Timeline of the Gaza War. For events pertaining to the conflict which occurred before 27 December 2008, see Gaza War#Background and 2007–2008 Israel–Gaza conflict.
Contents
[hide]
* 1 Timeline
o 1.1 December
o 1.2 January
* 2 See also
* 3 References
[edit] Timeline
[edit] December
27 December 2008
Israeli armed forces began operations against Hamas and the rocket launchers at 11:30 a.m., December 27. More than 50 fighter jets and attack helicopters entered Gazan airspace. Palestinian sources claimed that Israeli forces were responsible for killing 225-292 Palestinians and wounding more than 1,000.[1][2][3] It was the most extensive attack on Gaza since 1967.[1] The IAF, which claimed that it was responding to Hamas rocket attacks on southern Israel,[4] dropped more than 100 bombs on 50 targets,[4] which reportedly included Hamas paramilitary bases, training camps, and underground Kassam launchers. Bombs were dropped on government offices, police stations, and the Hamas headquarters.
The aircraft used were F-16 fighter jets and AH-64 Apache helicopters.[5][6][7] About 140 members of Hamas security forces were killed, including police chief Tawfiq Jabber, the head of Hamas’ security and protection unit[8] and the police commander for central Gaza,[9] along with at least 15 civilians. Children were among the casualties.[8][10] The bombed areas included a ceremony for new police officers. About 40 graduates were killed.[11] A mosque in Gaza City was also targeted in the airstrikes and two Palestinians were killed.[12] Israeli military spokesmen claimed that the mosque was being used for "terrorist activities".[12]
Sixty Israeli planes also targeted Hamas security and military training compounds, as well as weapon storage buildings,[13][14] and dropped more than 100 tons of bombs. Some of the bombs used on 27 and 28 December were the U.S. built GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb, the first shipment of which arrived in Israel at the beginning of the month.[15]
Hamas later fired 700 rockets and mortars at Israel. One of the rockets hit the town of Netivot, killing an Israeli man, destroying a house and wounding six other people.[14][16] Another rocket hit a synagogue in the Eshkol Regional Council, injuring two men, one seriously.[17] In the evening, two men in the Israeli community of Mivtahim were injured from a direct hit of a Hamas rocket; one was seriously wounded.[citation needed]
According to United Nations officials, fuel deliveries to the Gaza Strip through the Nahal Oz crossing were suspended, with the last delivery taking place a day previous on 26 December.[18]
Many Palestinians refer to December 27 as the Massacre of the Black Saturday[3] as it produced the highest one-day death toll in 60 years of conflict.[19]
28 December 2008
Twenty-five airstrikes were carried out on Sunday by Israel, raising the number of casualties to 287 dead and 900 wounded.[20] According to the Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, Hamas refused to allow casualties to leave Gaza for medical treatment.[21] One rocket shot by an F-16 fighter jet on a mosque near Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, from which rockets were reported by Israeli media to be launched, killed four members of Hamas.[22][23] In Gaza City, five children from the same family were killed in an Israeli airstrike.[24] Israeli jets bombed tunnels in the Rafah area. These tunnels were reportedly used to smuggle civilian goods and weapons after Israel and Egypt imposed the blockade of Gaza in June 2007. [25] [26][27] The main road of Sallah el-Dein in northern Gaza Strip was bombed. The road leads to the towns of Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia and Jabalia. No injuries were reported in the bombing.
An Israeli air-to-ground rocket destroyed a metal workshop in northern Gaza City which, according to Israel, was used in manufacturing Qassam rockets fired at Israel. The Al-Noor organisation in Gaza City, belonging to the Hamas organization, was bombed, causing severe damage to the building.[28] The main building of the Hamas-owned Al-Aqsa TV station was struck.[29] The station continued broadcasting via a "mobile unit".[30] Aidan White, Secretary-General of the International Federation of Journalists condemned the destruction of the television station, stating that international law "forbids attacks on media installations, even when they are instruments of propaganda".[31] The IAF attacked Jabalia and northern Gaza killing two more people and wounding others.[32]
Al Saraya, a building in Gaza City which contained government offices, security offices and a prison, was attacked. Four people died.[32] A fuel lorry traveling in Rafah near the Egyptian border was destroyed, killing six people.[33] IDF also confirmed an attack on tunnels in Philadelphi Route and claimed successful destruction of 40 of them.[34] Missiles also hit near the Beit Hanoun City Hall.[35]
Rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip, the range of which were extended. Three rockets landed near the city of Ashdod – the fifth largest Israeli city and a main sea port.[36] The border with Egypt was breached and inhabitants from Gaza moved into Egypt. One Egyptian border policeman was killed by Palestinian gunmen, and several Palestinians were wounded by Egyptian gunfire and taken to hospital in Egypt.[37]
The United Nations Security Council held a closed door meeting convened at the request of Libya. The meeting lasted four hours,[38] and resulted in a press statement calling "on the parties to stop immediately all military activities ... [and] to address the serious humanitarian and economic needs in Gaza and to take necessary measures, including opening of border crossings."[39]
29 December 2008
Air strikes on the Strip continued. Just after midnight on 29 December, Israeli forces made six separate airstrikes against the Islamic University of Gaza, a "cultural symbol" of Hamas,[40][41] though the university had evacuated days in advance. According to The Jerusalem Post, the university hosts Hamas military laboratories under the auspices of professors and its buildings were used for storing rockets and explosives.[42] According to the IDF and the Shin Bet, one compound near the Islamic college, which was bombed twice, was being used as a chemical lab and as a Hamas explosives lab; Israel claimed that Hamas had been working to improve rockets and manufacture mortar shells.[43] Israel asserted that the university chemistry laboratory was a "fair target", even if it could not show conclusively that those inside the laboratory at the time of the attack where engaged in making weapons.[44]
The death toll rose to 415 that morning, as reported by the Associated Press. The Palestinian interior ministry in Gaza building was hit by Israeli missiles at dawn. The university and the ministry are both located in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood.[45]
A mosque in the Jabaliya refugee camp was also bombed by the IAF. The building was destroyed and five young girls whose house neighboured the mosque were killed.[46] Ziad Abu-Tir, a senior member of the Islamic Jihad's military wing was killed in a strike in the Khan Younis area.[47]
The International Red Cross reported that hospitals in the Gaza Strip were overwhelmed and unable to cope with the casualties.[48] Red Cross spokesman in Gaza Iyad Nasr said Gaza needed more supplies to be brought in urgently, "in particular the hospitals have been depleted and stretched to the maximum because of the closure imposed".[49] According to the IDF, Israel permitted a number of Turkish-donated ambulances from the West Bank to be transported to the Gaza Strip, as well as Red Cross, UNRWA, World Food Programme and Doctors Without Borders medical supplies.[50]
The Israeli city of Ashkelon was hit by a Grad rocket, killing an Israeli-Arab[51] construction worker and seriously wounding three other people.[46] Nahal Oz army base in Southern Israel was hit by mortar fire, killing one soldier, who was later identified as Lutfi Nasraldin. The attacks increased pressure on the government as the army amassed infantry and armored forces along the border.[52]
Israel's military intelligence chief claimed that Hamas' ability to fire rockets had been reduced by 50 percent, but that Hamas continued to command "some 20,000 fighters".[53]
The foreign ministry of Senegal reported that exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal was ready to sign an immediate ceasefire with Israel, provided Israel lifted its blockade on the Gaza Strip.[54]
On 29 December an IDF spokesperson confirmed for the first time that, apart from maintaining the naval blockade on Gaza, the Israeli Navy was taking an active part in the operation.[55] A video taken by the Israeli Navy and published on several news sites[56] showed the Israeli Navy attacking the Gaza coast line, using both Typhoon Weapon System and surface-to-surface missiles.
According to Haaretz, among the targets hit by the Israeli Navy were Ismayil Haniah's offices, several command and control centers used by Hamas, and a Hamas patrol boat.[56] On 31 December, the Israeli Navy "targeted a number of Hamas outposts and rocket launching sites", according to the IDF spokesperson.[57] On January 4, Israel extended the naval blockade from 6 to 20 nautical miles (11–37 km; 6.9–23 mi) to prevent all vessels from entering the Strip.[58]
Dignity incident
On 29 December 2008, the Free Gaza Movement motor yacht Dignity set course from Cyprus, carrying aid to Gaza.[59] The boat, which carried Irish human rights activist Caoimhe Butterly, former United States Representative and 2008 Green Party nominee for U.S. President Cynthia McKinney, journalists from Al Jazeera and CNN such as Karl Penhaul,[60] and three surgeons including Dr. Elena Theoharous, a member of the Cyprus Parliament,[61] attempted to enter the Gaza Strip, carrying 3.5 tonnes (3.9 short tons) of medical supplies.[59][62] Its passengers stated that several Israeli naval vessels approached their boat.[63] Free Gaza member David Halpin said that Israeli officers on board asked the captain to halt the Dignity's course to Gaza, but he refused.[64] According to CNN reporter Penhaul an Israeli vessel rammed the motor yacht, causing heavy damage.[60][63] Penhaul has admittedly stated he did not have a view of the Israeli vessel at the time.[65] Other passengers claimed that several Israeli vessels fired machine guns into the water.[63] The activists stated that their boat was clearly in international waters, about "70-80 miles"[62][66] or "90 miles"[63][67] from the Gaza Strip coast. McKinney claimed that the Israeli vessel had rammed the boat "approximately three times, twice in the front and once in the side".
Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor claimed that no shooting had occurred,[68] and that the motor yacht was inside Israeli territorial waters, and that the boat had failed to respond to Israeli naval radio contact.[63] Palmor claimed that the Dignity had crashed into an Israel vessel while attempting to outmanoeuvre it.[69][70] Palmor also claimed that the fact that the ship was carrying journalists, including a CNN crew that had already broadcast live three times, proved that the incident was a provocation on the part of the media.[70] Immediately after the incident, the boat turned back. Palmor stated that the naval ship offered to assist the passengers but that they had declined the offer.[71] Palmor also stated that Israeli ships escorted the damaged boat to Cypriot territorial waters.[71] It did not have enough fuel to return to Cyprus and ended up docking in Lebanon, where it was greeted with cheering crowds.[59][69]
Cypriot Foreign Minister Markos Kyprianou stated that Cyprus would lodge a formal complaint regarding the incident.[63] In a written statement, the Consulate General of Israel to the Southeast USA, based in Atlanta, Georgia, said that McKinney "has taken it upon herself to commit an act of provocation", endangering herself and the crew, and called her behavior "irresponsible".[60]
30 December 2008
Israeli air-strikes struck five ministerial buildings, another structure owned by Islamic University, a sports center, two Hamas training camps, the home of a senior Hamas commander (who was not present), and offices of the Popular Resistance Committees. 10 fatalities were reported.[72] The "whole compound" of ministerial buildings in Gaza City, including the Ministries of Finance, Interior and Education, were "completely destroyed" by 30 December.[73] The International Middle East Media Center stated that the ministries were "not 'terrorist' or military sites" and that the buildings were "civilian buildings that served the population in civil matters".[73] The premises of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (GCMHP) were destroyed.[74][75]
Gazans claimed that most Israeli strikes came without warning, but Israeli forces claimed that they offered "general" warnings by dropping leaflets and by interrupting radio broadcasts telling Gaza residents to flee their homes if they were hiding weapons or terrorists.[76] Amnesty International argued that "there are no 'safe' places in Gaza for civilians to seek shelter".[77]
Israel kept schools closed within a radius of about 50 km (24 miles) from the Gaza border, citing concerns about further rocket fire. Residents were told to remain indoors and on the alert for alarms heralding incoming rockets.[78] Hamas launched Chinese-made rockets at Beersheba, a city in southern Israel. A Grad missile landed in an empty kindergarten, causing damage.[79] 24 Qassam rockets and 11 mortars were fired into Israel, causing some damage but no injuries.[80]
Egypt said it would only fully open its border with the Gaza Strip if the crossing post were to come under the control of Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority.[81]
Israel had banned reporters from entering the Gaza strip since November 2008, citing security reasons. A petition made by 400 foreign journalists to enter the Gaza Strip was filed with Israel's supreme court.[82]
Israel permitted 100 trucks carrying humanitarian supplies to enter the Gaza Strip via the Kerem Shalom border crossing. Five ambulances donated by Turkey were also allowed entry.[83][84]
31 December 2008
Forty Palestinians, including at least five civilians, were killed during continued air strikes,[85] as UNRWA reported that at least 25 percent of the dead thus far in the conflict had been civilians.[86] Israel continued bombing, striking "dozens of targets" including smuggling tunnels along the Gaza–Egypt border.[85]
During the morning, two more rockets launched from Gaza hit the city of Beersheba; one of the rockets hit a school, causing severe damage to the building, but no casualties, as Israeli authorities instructed schools to remain closed. Two rockets landed in the Israeli city of Ashkelon, causing light injuries to two people; another rocket hit the town of Ofakim; several more landed around these cities and the cities of Kiryat Gat, Kiryat Malachi and Ashdod.[87] Altogether, more than 60 Katyusha and Qassam rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel.[88][89]
According to UN humanitarian coordinator Maxwell Gaylard, Gaza's hospitals were facing severe strain dealing with "their largest ever trauma caseloads under some of the most adverse conditions imaginable".[90] Douglas Alexander, Britain's International Development Secretary is quoted saying "Thousands are suffering. Medical items are in short supply. Fuel shortages have led to power cuts which in turn are affecting hospitals and other essential services. And UN stocks of food are very low. The limited aid that is getting through cannot be distributed properly because of bombing from the air and rocket attacks launched from inside Gaza".[91] A seriously injured six-year-old Palestinian boy was allowed to be transferred from Gaza to an Israeli children's hospital for treatment.[92]
Israel rejected international appeals proposed by the French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner to grant a 48-hour cease-fire, saying that conditions were not right for the ceasefire.[93][94] Meanwhile, Hamas spokesman Ayman Taha told the AFP agency that Hamas is open to any ceasefire proposition that will end the Israeli airstrikes and stop the Gaza blockade.[93] Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, threatened to halt peace talks if they go against the Palestinian interests and offer support for "aggression".[93]
In a briefing to the Israeli cabinet, Shin Bet Chief Yuval Diskin said that Hamas has suffered significant damages and its rule over Gaza has been compromised, and that many Hamas operatives are hiding in hospitals, posing as medical staff, or hiding in mosques and using them as headquarters, since they assumed Israel won't attack them there.[95] According to the Israeli air force, Hamas cells have been firing rockets from within densely populated areas and attempting to use Palestinian civilians as human shields. Cells have been detected in neighborhoods in Gaza City, Jabalya, Khan Younis and Rafah. The Israel Defense Forces has distributed flyers to the Palestinian population in Gaza, warning civilians not to stay close to any Hamas related buildings, for their own safety.[95] The Israeli Air Force bombed a Gaza Strip mosque. According to the IDF the mosque was used by Hamas as a storage site for missiles and explosive materials and that rocket cells were firing at Israel from the mosque area and from nearby sites. According to ynet, the attack on the mosque was carried out after legal consultation with IDF experts on international law.[96]
Israel's supreme court, in response to a court petition heard the previous day,[97] "gave the Israeli government until 10 a.m. Thursday to allow a small group of reporters into the Gaza Strip. The court warned that the reporters would be in the embattled area at their own risk".[97] The ruling "went against a government decision six weeks ago to keep foreign reporters out of Gaza until rockets fired against Israel were halted".[97]
Ninety-three trucks carrying medicine, medical supplies and food donated by Jordan and international organisations were allowed entry to the Gaza Strip, through the Kerem Shalom border crossing. The World Food Programme notified the IDF that it was not in need of any further food shipments, as its warehouses were filled to capacity.[98][99]
Top UN aid officials urged Israel to allow for the resumption of fuel deliveries into the Gaza Strip, noting that the fuel shortage resulting from the suspension of deliveries had caused the main power plant in Gaza to shut down on 30 December, affecting 350,000 people in Central and Northern Gaza, who live with 16 hours or more of powercuts per day.[18]
The United Nations Security Council met for two hours to hear statements from the Secretary General, the representatives of Palestine, Israel and the other members of the Council.[100]
[edit] January
1 January 2009
Israeli air strikes hit Gaza's parliament building, and the offices of the education and justice ministries, leaving four dead and 25 wounded.[101] A pre-dawn strike against the home of a Hamas operative resulted in the death of a Palestinian woman.[102] Palestinian reports also mention missiles landed on a workshop and several money changers' offices, one of which was close to a children's hospital, slightly damaging it. In Rafah, air strikes destroyed five smuggling tunnels and a police command center, while in Gaza City, an alleged weapons manufacturing center and storage facility was destroyed.[103] Dozens of Israelis received text messages from Hamas in the morning warning that the offensive on Gaza would only bring about massive rocket fire on Israel.[104] According to Israeli military sources, Hamas launched more than 50 rockets into Israel without causing casualties.[105] Rockets hit Beersheba and Ashdod, damaging a residential building in the latter city.[101]
An Israeli warplane dropped a one-ton bomb on the home of Nizar Rayan, a senior Hamas political leader, in the Jabaliya refugee camp, killing him, 9 women (including his four wives), his 11 children,[106] and wounding another 30.[107][108][109] As a liaison between the political and armed wings of Hamas and advocate of renewing suicide bombings, Rayan is the most senior political figure to be killed by Israel since 2004.[110] According to the IDF, Rayan's house was used as an arms cache, a communications headquarters and concealed a tunnel's opening.[111][112] The International Herald Tribune reported that among those killed were Rayan's four wives and nine of their twelve children.[107] On 2 January, the Times Online reports instead that two of his four wives and four of his 12 children were killed.[113] UN OCHA reports that 13 of his family members, including 11 of his children, were killed and 12 were injured.[114] There were reports that the family was warned by the IDF to leave the building but that they had refused to do so.[111][112] According to ynet, recent deliberations by the IDF resulted in a decision that striking homes used as weapons storages when sufficient warning is given to the residents falls within the boundaries of international law and is legitimate.[112] Rayan had sent his son to carry out a suicide attack in the community of Elei Sinai in 2001 in which two Israelis were killed, and was behind the bombing in the Ashdod Port in 2004 which left 10 Israelis dead.[112][115][116][117]
Ninety trucks carrying food and medical supplies provided by international organisations entered the Gaza Strip through the Kerem Shalom border crossing.[118] Egypt blocked the entry of humanitarian aid from Qatar to pass through the Rafah crossing, however, Israel announced it would allow several aircraft from Qatar to land in Israel and the aid will be sent by truck to Gaza.[119]
2 January 2009
Hamas called for a "Day of Wrath" against Israel, bringing thousands of protesters out onto the streets of Gaza and the West Bank.[120] Israeli air strikes on Friday targeted the homes of 20 Hamas officials,[121] including that of Imad Akel in Nuseirat and Mohammed Madhoun. One of the strikes in Khan Yunis killed five civilians.[122] Israel began to bomb the ground near its boundary in an attempt to clear it of landmines, increasing speculation that a ground offensive was imminent. Israel briefly opened the Erez crossing to allow about 440 residents with foreign passports to leave the Gaza Strip.[123] Foreign journalists continued to be barred entry to Gaza; those who had lined up at the Erez crossing intending to enter after a court decision supported their right to do so when the crossing is open, were turned back by Israeli authorities.[124] At around 10:45, in a repeat attack south-west of Deir al-Balah, an International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement ambulance, which had arrived to transport survivors following an initial attack, was destroyed by a second Israeli attack. The two crew members in the ambulance were injured and hospitalised.[125]
Throughout the day, thirty rockets were fired at Israel; three people were lightly injured, and several buildings sustained heavy damage.[126] In Jerusalem, men under the age of 50, or those who didn't hold Israeli ID were unable to access prayers in the Al-Aqsa Mosque.[114]
3 January 2009
Thirteen Palestinians, including six children, were killed and dozens wounded when the Israeli Air Force bombed the Maqadna Mosque in Beit Lahiya, in which about 200 people had gathered for evening prayers.[127] [128] Witnesses said over 200 Palestinians were praying inside at the time. [129] Another person was killed as the American International School in Gaza was destroyed. [130]
A senior commander of Hamas' armed wing, Abu Zakaria al-Jamal was killed.[131] He was commander of Gaza City's rocket-launching squads.[132] In another air strike, Jamal Mamduch, commander of the Gaza City battalion, was killed.[133] Many of the killed Hamas leaders died along with their families in their own homes.
At least 34 rockets were fired at Israel during the day, damaging several buildings, and lightly injuring one woman in Netivot. A number of Hamas rockets hit the city of Beersheba (population 186,000) in southern Israel, with one exploding on an empty school.[134] Four Israelis had been killed by rockets fired from Gaza since the beginning of IAF attacks.[127]
Israel launched its first artillery strikes. Israel had at this point carried out more than 700 strikes on Gaza since launching the offensive a week prior, according to AFP.
The UN warned of a worsening humanitarian crisis, and reported that at least 100 of the more than 400 Palestinians killed by Israel at this point were women and children.[127]
On the evening of 3 January, Israeli ground troops entered Gaza.[128][135] The intention of the ground invasion, according to the Israeli Defense Forces website, was to secure areas within the Gaza Strip from which rockets had been launched after previous Israeli operations.
The United Nations Security Council held another closed-door meeting which failed to produce an official statement or an on-the-record debate or vote on a resolution.[136] Speaking outside the meeting, the President of the General Assembly Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann said "Once again, the world is watching in dismay the disfunctionality of the Security Council."[137]
4 January 2009
Israeli ground troops entered Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza in the early hours.[138] Israeli forces bisected Gaza and surrounded Gaza City, but reportedly restricted their movements to areas that were not heavily urbanised.[139] The Israeli military said forty sites had been targeted, including targets for weapons depots and rocket launch sites. Despite a Supreme Court ruling to allow a limited number of journalists into the warzone, Israel refused to allow journalists into the area.[140] Heavy fighting was reported near Gaza City.[138] The IDF reported that 30 of its soldiers were wounded, 28 from a single mortar shell which landed next to a Golani regiment), with two out of those 30 badly injured. One later died of his wounds. The Israeli government also claimed to have killed at least 50 Hamas "terrorists" in the incursion and to have wounded dozens more.[141]The Israeli soldier killed was identified as 22 year old Sergeant Dvir Emanuelof.[142][143][144]Palestinian medical sources claimed that at least 21 Palestinians were killed in the fighting.[145] Additionally, Palestinian health ministry officials stated that at least 17 people were killed and 130 injured when Israeli shells fell near a school and the main market in Gaza City. A tank shell fired in northern Gaza killed 12 people, apparently including civilians. An Israeli missile hit a house in the Shuja'iyya neighborhood, killing a mother and her four children. In the morning, an ambulance operating out of Al-Awda hospital in the northern city of Beit Lahiya was shelled, seriously injuring 4 medical staff.[146] At least 41 rockets and mortars were fired into Israel.[147] Three Israeli civilians were lightly wounded.[148]
Three senior Hamas leaders were killed on Sunday: Hussam Hamdan, who according to the IDF was responsible for the organisation's rocket fire and the man behind the firing of Grad missiles towards the cities of Beersheba and Ofakim; Muhammad Hilou, who according to the IDF was responsible for Hamas' special forces in Khan Younis and for the firing of long-range rockets; and Mohammed Shalpokh, who commanded Hamas forces in Rafah.[145][149][150][151]
Also on January 4, the director of Israel's internal security agency, the Shin Bet, told the cabinet that Hamas leaders both at home and in exile felt that their organisation was facing an "existential threat" and was "willing to reach an agreement" on a ceasefire. However, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said that Israel did not intend to conclude a "diplomatic product" with Hamas. Such a move had been avoided in the past out of fear of legitimising Hamas as a negotiating partner.[citation needed]
Hamas sources told The Jerusalem Post that members of al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, the Popular Resistance Committees, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine were participating in the fighting against the IDF, and that they were making use of U.S. and Israeli weapons confiscated from members of Fatah in the 2007 Battle of Gaza.[152]
According to medical sources, the total Palestinian death toll for the day was 42, most of them civilians.[153]
Fatah officials in Ramallah told The Jerusalem Post that Hamas militiamen had been assaulting many Fatah activists since the beginning of the operation last Saturday. They said at least 75 activists were shot in the legs while others had their hands broken. Meanwhile, sources close to Hamas revealed over the weekend that the movement had "executed" more than 35 Palestinians who were suspected of collaborating with Israel and were being held in various Hamas security installations.[154]
The New York Times reported that Israelis fired tank shells into a house in the Tuffah district,[155] and that early on the 4th, in the crowded Shati refugee camp near the coast, a shell fired from a navy ship hit another house; there were no survivors.[155]
Zeitoun incident
The Daily Telegraph reported that in the Zeitoun district, early in the morning of January 4, Israeli troops evacuated about 110 members of the Samouni, an extended family clan, into a Samouni-owned warehouse, where they waited without running water or food for 24 hours. Starting at 6:35am on the 5th, the house was repeatedly shelled. Some were killed inside the building by falling masonry; although the rest attempted to flee the building, the majority of the dead were killed outside, by shrapnel.[156] Initial reports were of 60 to 70 killed;[156] the UN count of the total killed was 30, with 11 Samouni family members dead.[157] A few survivors, some wounded, others carrying some of the dead or dying, managed to reach Gaza's main north-south road where passing cars stopped to take them to the hospital. A Red Crescent volunteer said that injured people were left behind: "we could not get to them and it was no longer safe for us to stay."[156] According to the Red Cross, ambulances were not given permission to enter the neighborhood to retrieve the injured from the building until a day later.[158][159] The United Nations confirmed these reports on January 9[157] Three children later died after they were transported to hospital.[160] Reports of the incident were given to the media by Norwegian doctors stationed in the Shifa Hospital, Gaza, as early as Tuesday, January 5.[161]
B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, alleged that Israeli forces had not done their duty to prevent civilian casualties by assisting the wounded. 48 hours after the attack, ICRC ambulances searching 100 yards from where Israeli soldiers were stationed found four children, too weak to move, that had taken refuge near corpses believed to be those of their family.[162][162] "The ICRC believes that in this instance the Israeli military failed to meet its obligation under international humanitarian law to care for and evacuate the wounded," said a statement from the International Red Cross and Red Crescent, and called the delay considers the delay in granting access "unacceptable".[162]
Other buildings were reported as being shelled during the incident,[157][163] and IDF infantry reportedly fired on an occupied house[158] The survivors of the incident were treated at Shifa hospital, Gaza.[163]
The IDF stated that it had no knowledge of the incident, and that "IDF forces had not yet reached the areas in question" by January 4.[164] An Israeli army spokesman said there was no record of a "specific attack on a specific target", nor had the army massed civilians in specific locations. "This does not rule out exchanges of fire but it does rule out targeting of a specific building," he said.[159] Israel said there is not a humanitarian crisis in Gaza and that it is working with international agencies and doing what it can to reduce civilian casualties.[162]
The UN's OCHA said that if it was true it was "one of the gravest incidents" in the conflict,[165] and called for an investigation into the incident, but did not make any "accusations of deliberate action" at the time. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navanethem Pillay, said the Zeitoun Samouni incident "appears to have all the elements of war crimes."[157][162] Pillay called for "credible, independent and transparent" investigations into possible violations of humanitarian law.[166]
5 January 2009
As Israeli tanks and troops seized control of large parts of the Gaza Strip, tens of thousands of Gazans fled their homes amidst artillery and gunfire, and flooded into the heart of Gaza City.[167] Gun battles reportedly broke out between Israel and Hamas on the streets of Gaza, as Israeli forces surrounded the city.[153][168] BBC reporters stated that the battles were preventing essential medical supplies from reaching hospitals and casualties.[169]
An airstrike hit an ambulance, killing three paramedics.[170] Israeli tank shelling killed at least 24 civilians in the Gaza Strip,[171] 13 of them children.[172] A family of seven were killed by an Israeli airstrike in al-Shati Camp east of Gaza City.[169] In Gaza's Zaytun neighborhood, seven members of another family were killed and in separate incident, a pregnant Palestinian woman and her four children were killed.[173]
Media reported that Israel was using the controversial substance white phosphorous over civilian targets during the course of its military operation.[174][175][176] Some media reported that Israel used the substance as a smokescreen.[177][178][179] Israel used white phosphorus in Lebanon in 2006, and the UK and the US have used it elsewhere. Israel denied using the substance.[174][180] According to Ha'aretz and the UN humanitarian chief, Israel had also used cluster bombs.[181][182]
Hamas said it would send a delegation to Egypt for talks, as France spearheaded diplomatic efforts to obtain a 48-hour truce.[153] Israel continued to refuse to let journalists enter the Gaza Strip, despite a ruling from the Israeli Supreme Court to admit a limited number of reporters.[169]
Over 40 Qassam and Grad rockets were fired from Gaza at southern Israel striking Ashkelon, Ashdod, Sderot, Kiryat Malakhi, near Ofakim, Netivot and Beersheba. Hamas also fired rockets at the area between Ashdod and Gedera.
Hamas claimed to have killed 9 Israeli fighters.[183] Hamas also claimed to have captured two Israeli soldiers. Israel dismissed the claims, accusing Hamas of engaging in "psychological warfare".[184] By evening, the Israeli Defense Forces claimed that during the course of the day they had killed between 80-100 Hamas fighters in ground fighting, and that a further 100 "wanted gunmen" had been taken prisoner. Palestinian cells fired nearly 40 rockets and mortar shells at Israel, injuring four Israelis.[185][186]
An IDF spokesperson stated that three Israeli soldiers were killed in a friendly fire incident[187] after erroneously identifying Israeli soldiers as "terrorists."[188] About 20 soldiers were injured in the incident.[189] Another IDF officer was reported killed in a separate friendly fire incident. [190]
UN officials published a report which stated that an Israeli airstrike on the grounds of a UN school, which was serving as a makeshift refugee camp for hundreds of displaced Palestinians, killed three Palestinian men.[191] An official from the Danish charitable organization DanChurchAid reported that three mobile clinics set up to help hospitals in Gaza cope with the wounded were bombarded in Israeli airstrikes, despite being clearly marked as humanitarian vehicles.[192]
A total of 30 Palestinian civilians were known to have been killed on January 5, and the total Palestinian death toll at the end of the day was 540,[193] until details of the Samouni family incident (below) emerged several days later.
6 January 2009
According to Palestinian sources, 20 people were killed in a number of IDF attacks. Medical workers reported that an attack on Deir al-Balah and the Bureij refugee camp killed ten Palestinians, including a father and his three children. An IDF soldier was killed and four wounded in an ambush in northern Gaza City.[194]The IDF soldiers returned fire, killing all of the Hamas fighters. The IDF soldier killed was identified as Alexander Mashevitzky. According to YNET, the head of Hamas' artillery forces and a senior member of Hamas' military wing, Ayman Siam, were both hit and believed to have been killed in an aerial attack in the Jabaliya neighborhood in the northern Gaza Strip.[195][195]
At least 30 rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza.[196] Gedera, 30 kilometers (19 mi) south of Tel Aviv, was hit for the first time.[197] A Grad rocket landed near a house, lightly injuring a 3-month old girl.[196]
"There's nowhere safe in Gaza", said John Ging, the UN's senior official in Gaza. "Everyone is terrorized and traumatized." He spoke of 1 million Palestinians without electricity and 700,000 without water, challenging world leaders to undergo similar privations until they had stopped the fighting: "You are not to sleep, eat or drink until you stop the killing of innocent people in the Gaza Strip". [198]
Israel continued to refuse foreign journalists' access to the Gaza Strip. The continuing ban on foreign media access drew criticism from journalists that Israel was trying to "manage" the story. Israel claimed that opening border crossings for journalists would endanger staff at the terminals. While the Associated Press and some other news organizations have Palestinian reporters, photographers and cameramen based in Gaza, many media outlets have no reliable source of independent information.[199]
Medics report that an Israeli airstrike on a 4-story building in Gaza City the night before had killed 12 members of the same extended family; the bodies of 7 children aged one to twelve years old, 3 women and 2 men from the Daya family were pulled from the rubble on Tuesday.[200][201]
Senior Israeli defense officials claimed that Hamas had set up independent hospitals, and had stolen Israeli aid supplies. [202]
A senior IDF officer claimed that "tunnels, weapons, anti-aircraft missiles, grenades, explosive devices, and weapons prepared for future attacks, such as motorbikes intended for kidnapping," had been found; the officer also stated that booby-trapped homes had been encountered, and that a booby-trapped mosque had been blown up.[203]
The United Nations Security Council held a four hour meeting in New York attended by Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian National Authority, the UN Secretary-General, David Miliband (foreign secretary of the United Kingdom), and Condoleezza Rice (US Secretary of State), where all sides stated their view of the situation.[204]
UNRWA school Incident
See article:Al-Fakhura school incident
Palestinian medics in Gaza stated, and news agencies worldwide reported, that 43 people were killed in an Israeli strike on an UNRWA school.[205][206] The UN clarified in February that the shells had struck outside the school, not within the compound. Maxwell Gaylord (the UN humanitarian coordinator in Jerusalem) said that the UN "would like to clarify that the shelling and all of the fatalities took place outside and not inside the school."[207][208] John Ging, UNRWA's operations director in Gaza stated he had been misquoted by the Jerusalem Post and other newspapers as saying that shells had hit the school, and that the UNRWA's earliest report on January 6 was correct in saying that shells had hit outside it.[209]
Two tank shells exploded outside the school, spraying shrapnel on people inside and outside the building, where at least 350 Palestinians had sought refuge from fighting between Israelis and Palestinians.[210][211] The strike took place near the Al-Fakhura school in Jabaliya in northern Gaza and was the third deadly Israeli attack near United Nations-run schools on 6 January.[212]
The IDF said mortars from inside the school were fired at Israeli forces, and that Israeli soldiers were responding to them.[213][214] The IDF also stated that bodies of militants were found inside the school afterwards.[213] Time magazine reported, "The IDF gave the names of two Hamas combatants it says were killed inside the school — Imad and Hassan Abu Askar — who allegedly fired the mortars. But the IDF did not explain how it was able to identify them among the many casualties. Troops did not visit the school after the attack, nor did the IDF have access to a casualty list from Gaza's hospitals."[215]. Nevertheless, Col. Moshe Levi (head of the IDF's Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration) said, in February 2009, that 12 were the Palestinians killed in the incident - nine Hamas operatives and three noncombatants[216].Hamas rejected the claims of any fire from the school, calling them "baseless".[217]
UNRWA spokesperson Christopher Gunness stated that the IDF later admitted in closed-door meetings that the fire they responded to was from outside the school.[218] He noted that the UN buildings that had been fired upon displayed the UN flag, and that the UN had provided GPS coordinates of UN schools sheltering civilians to the IDF.[218][219] Days earlier Gunness had said that the UNRWA was "99.9% certain" that there were no terrorists or military activity in the school, adding that this "does not necessarily contradict Israel's claim that the militants were operating close by".[220]
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was said by an aide to be investigating the option of bringing the incident before international courts.[221]
The day of the attack, the UN requested an inquiry into both the assault and the Israeli allegations about terrorists firing from its schools. Ban Ki Moon condemned the attack, saying it was "totally unacceptable."[222]
7 January 2009
At least 12 Palestinians were killed in fresh strikes in the Gaza Strip. At least 15 rockets hit Israel, causing no casualties.[205]
Following the strikes, Israel initiated a three-hour "humanitarian" truce. The Israeli army refrained from attacks from 1 to 4 pm, though there were reports of exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and Hamas during that period. During the temporary truce, 80 aid trucks were allowed to enter the Strip, some of which delivered industrial fuel to Gaza's power plant. Access was granted to previously closed regions, to allow residents access to supplies. According to Israeli sources, they planned to repeat this move daily. Fighting resumed immediately following the end of the truce.[223]
Despite the parties’ agreement to halt fighting during aid deliveries, a UN convoy was fired upon, killing two aid workers. The UN initially blamed Israeli tank fire, though an Israeli investigation later cleared the IDF of responsibility. UN sources subsequently admitted "that they were not sure in which direction the truck was headed when it was hit, and could also not say with certainty that tank shells were responsible."[224] As a result of the incident, the UN briefly suspended aid shipments but resumed them on January 9 after receiving assurances from Israel that they were not being targeted.[225][226]
8 January 2009
At least two dozen Israeli airstrikes were reported, in which at least 4 Palestinians were killed and at least 22 wounded.[227] UN officials said at least one driver in a UN aid convoy was killed after the convoy was fired upon by Israeli forces.[228] The UN claimed the attack happened in spite of co-ordinating its movements with the IDF. It subsequently said it would suspend all relief activities in Gaza until it had received guarantees of the safety of its staff from Israel.[229][230]
Israel announced the deaths of three soldiers: Roi Rosner, Amit Robinson, and Omer Rabinovitch, bringing the total number of soldiers killed to eight.[227][231]Israel also claimed to have killed many Hamas fighters.
Three Katyusha rockets from Lebanon territory were fired at the northern Israeli city of Nahariyya. Two civilians were injured. The IDF returned fire at the launch sites in southern Lebanon. No one claimed responsibility for the attack.[232]
The United Nations Security Council met and passed a resolution "stressing the urgency of and calls for an immediate, durable and fully respected ceasefire, leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza", and welcoming the Egyptian initiative, among other points.[233] While the United States abstained on the vote, Condoleezza Rice explained to the Council that the U.S. thought it important to see the outcomes of the Egyptian mediation efforts in order to see what the resolution might have been supporting, but that "after a great deal of consideration, we decided that the resolution -- the text of which we support, the goals of which we support and the objectives of which we fully support -- should indeed be allowed to go forward."[citation needed]
The order to abstain on the resolution, which U.S. diplomats had helped to draft, reportedly came at the last minute from President Bush, following pressure from the Israeli government, who issued a statement that the resolution was "not practical".[234] In an unusually public rebuke, the Israeli Prime Minister boasted of how he had phoned up President Bush while Bush was in the middle of a speech, and how the incident left Rice "pretty embarrassed".[235]
9 January 2009
The Israeli offensive continued, despite the passing of a UN Security resolution calling for an immediate and durable ceasefire.
Israel dismissed the Security Council resolution as "impractical": Ehud Olmert's office said that more Hamas rockets "only prove that the U.N.'s decision is not practical and will not be kept in practice by the Palestinian murder organizations." [236]
Hamas objected to not being consulted during the drafting of the resolution: "Nobody consulted Hamas or talked to Hamas. Nobody put Hamas in the picture and yet Hamas is required to accept it. This is unacceptable," Mohammed Nazzal, a senior Hamas official based in Syria, told Al-Arabiya television.[236]
At least 30 rockets were fired at southern Israel.[237] Hamas claimed to have hit the Tel Nof airbase, some 27 kilometers (17 mi) from Tel Aviv, which, if true, would make it the farthest strike to date.[238] Hamas also announced that Mahmoud Abbas' term as President had expired, and that while they do not expect Abbas to step down while the war continues in Gaza, they no longer recognize his legitimacy. Abbas responded that he still had another year, citing a law that says presidential and parliamentary elections should be held at the same time.[239]
Condoleezza Rice said that it was "difficult" to protect civilians in a place as densely populated as Gaza — an area 25 miles long and roughly six miles wide.[236] A UN report on Gaza noted that "the borders are closed, making this one of the rare conflicts where civilians have no place to flee."[219]
A three-hour truce took place on January 9. Palestinians fired three Grad-type rockets at Ashdod, shortly after 1 pm, the truce's start-time. While supplies were being transferred through Kerem Shalom border crossing, Palestinians fired several mortar shells at the terminal. No casualties were reported.[240]
The UN said its aid workers would resume movement, having received assurances from Israel that they were not being targeted.[226]
At around 23:00, an Israeli drone destroyed a Norwegian People's Aid (NPA) car that was clearly marked with the NPA logo, outside the home of an NPA employee, Mahmoud Hamada, at al-Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza. Nobody was injured. Surrounding buildings were severely damaged. The Secretary-General of NPA, Petter Eide, said that there are no military targets in the area. Raymond Johansen of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that the incident was a "clear violation of international law."[241][242]
10 January 2009
No rockets were fired into Israel overnight, a sharp drop from the dozens of projectiles that were launched in the early days of the offensive; during the morning, three rockets struck the southern city of Ashkelon, lightly wounding two people. Six additional rockets landed in open areas, with no casualties.[236][243]
The Israeli military said that in Gaza it had killed more than 15 terrorists and that IDF aircraft had attacked more than 40 targets throughout Gaza striking ten rocket-launching sites, weapons-storage facilities, smuggling tunnels, an anti-aircraft missile launcher and gunmen. Although Palestinian hospital officials could confirm only four deaths they also stated that fighting has hindered paramedics from collecting bodies and treating the wounded. Palestinian medical officials said that eight people were killed by Israeli tank fire Saturday in the town of Jebailiya and the dead appeared to be civilians per paramedics on the scene.[236]
The Israeli military said it would halt the fire in Gaza for three hours on Saturday to allow the territory's besieged residents to leave their homes and stock up on supplies. Medics use the lull to rescue casualties in areas of fighting, and aid groups also rush through food distribution.[236]
The Palestinian Authority president urged both Israel and Hamas to agree to an Egypt-brokered truce Saturday, but he singled out Israel, saying it would be responsible for a "waterfall of blood" if it didn't accept the deal.[244]
On January 10 the IDF stated that Hamas fighters are suffering from exhaustion. An IDF military commander said that Hamas terrorists are beginning to desert battle and refuse orders. Israeli military claims that Hamas younger operatives refused to venture outside to lob mortars against Israeli forces, prompting a senior Hamas leader, Amir Mansi, to operate the mortar himself. After IDF soldiers identified the source of fire, they shot and killed Mansi, wounding two others involved in the attack. Amir Mansi has been reported as an expert in the Grad rocket launching program, having been trained by Hezbollah. Also, the IDF stated that more than 300 Hamas fighters have been killed so far in the operation, the highest estimate so far, and at least 120 have been captured.[245] According to the reports, entire Hamas companies have been eliminated by the Israeli forces. A senior Israeli officer said that "complete battalions that have just been erased", adding that Hamas fighters are afraid to come out to fight, with many going AWOL and abandoning the battlefield.[246]
11 January 2009
The IAF attacked overnight a mosque in the town of Rafah, which according to Israel was being used as a Hamas training camp, a meeting place and a weapons cache. The IDF reported that the mosque contained machine-guns and anti-aircraft missiles.[247]
Israeli and Palestinian officials report that at least 40 Hamas gunmen were killed in a battle with IDF soldiers in the Gaza City neighborhood of Sheikh Ajalin. According to reports, Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists ambushed IDF forces in Sheikh Ajalin, which lead to "some of the heaviest fighting" since phase two of the operation began.[248] Palestinians reported that four people had been killed in the northern town of Beit Lahiya. The IDF reported hitting dozens of gunmen across the Gaza Strip on January 10 and 11.[247] Additionally, the IAF reported that Hamas operatives have tried to shoot down an IAF fixed wing aircraft with anti-aircraft missiles for the first time since operation in Gaza begun.[249]
Two rockets landed in the city of Beersheba, a half an hour before the city's high schools were to reopen after being closed for more than 10 days. Some 65% of Beersheba's 11 and 12th graders (about 2.700 students) were to return to school and study in bomb shelters.[250]
Three Palestinians were killed (two terrorists and one woman) in southern Gaza Strip. Dozens were injured in attacks near the village of Khouza to the east of Khan Younis. Palestinian medics in the area said that the injured suffered from burns and gas inhalations, symptoms indicating exposure to white phosphorus. Israel rejected the claim.[251]
There have been rumors circulating in the Egyptian media that IAF strikes have wounded the captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. A spokesman of Hamas politburo, Moussa Abu Marzuk, said that Shalit's condition is no longer a concern for Hamas. An Israeli Defense Ministry official dismissed the comments as "psychological warfare".[252] Vice Premier Haim Ramon in an interview with Army Radio added that Hamas is using Shalit as a "bargaining chip" hoping for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the captured soldier.[253]
On January 11, the IDF started to deploy thousands of reservists into the Gaza Strip for the first time since Israeli offensive against Hamas begun 16 days ago. The Israeli government announced that it had approved tens of thousands of call-ups of its reserve forces before the ground operation started on the 3rd of January. The troops have been refreshing on their urban training since then, and the bulk of the fighting has been done by Golani and Givati brigades. Analysts comment that this suggests Israel is intensifying its military efforts against Hamas.[248][254]
An Israeli patrol came under fire on the Syrian border on Sunday. The soldiers did not return fire and no casualties were reported, although the vehicle they were traveling in sustained damage. The IDF assessed that the Syrian army was not involved, believing it was Palestinians protesting the Gaza operation. It was the second cross-border attack in three days after three Katyusha rockets slammed into northern Israel on January 8 from Lebanon. Israel filed a complaint to the UNDOF in Syria which sent a team to investigate the reports.[255][256]
The IDF reported that it had uncovered an explosive device rigged with a timer that was hidden in a Palestinian school. A fuse attached to the explosives extended to a zoo located dozens of yards away. The soldiers managed to neutralize the bomb before it went off. According to the IDF, numerous weapons, including RPG launchers, grenades and AK-47 assault rifles were found inside the school.[257][258]
In the afternoon, during the "humanitarian corridor" - a time in which the Israeli army holds it fire and allows civilians in Gaza to receive aid - Hamas terrorists fired several rocket barrages. A rocket fired from the northern Gaza Strip hit a wall surrounding a kindergarten in Ashdod. There were no reports of damage or injury, but a few people were treated for shock. Other rockets were fired at Ashkelon, Sderot, Kiryat Malachi, and Eshkol Regional Council.[259]
12 January 2009
The IDF reported on January 12 that four soldiers were wounded, one seriously. The troops were part of a paratrooper unit that was operating in northern Gaza. The military said they launched an inquiry whether this incident was caused by friendly fire.[260] According to previous reports friendly fire has so far killed four soldiers in separate incidents on January 5.[187][190] Hamas' armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigade, claimed to have destroyed two Israeli tanks in the Gaza City neighborhood of Zeitun, and that they killed many soldiers in the village of Khuzaa, near the Israeli border. The Israeli army refuted these claims. [261]
Another paratrooper unit discovered and eventually destroyed a tunnel in Gaza that, according to the IDF, was meant to transfer suicide bombers into Israel. The tunnel was found some 300 meters from the fence on the border with Israel. It was also reported that the soldiers shot and killed a female would-be suicide bomber.[260] During the day the military, backed by the IAF, targeted over 25 sites on Monday, including tunnels and weapon caches, killing 9 Palestinians, five of whom, according to Palestinian officials, were civilians.[262]
US President George W. Bush threw his support behind Israel once more on January 12. The President was quoted with saying that he believes a sustainable ceasefire will only be achieved if Hamas stops firing rockets at Israel and that it is solely Hamas' choice to make. He reiterated Israel's right to defend herself but hoped she "continued to be mindful of the innocent folk" and help with humanitarian aid transfer into Gaza.[263] Meanwhile it was reported that Hamas raided over 100 trucks with humanitarian aid meant for civilians and sold it to the highest bidder. Israeli forces stopped several attempts to smuggle prohibited goods into Israel, namely electronics, since Defense Minister Ehud Barak said they do not classify as humanitarian aid. Israel still allows certain repair items to flow into Gaza to repair the damaged electric grid.[264]
Israel is considering establishing a field hospital outside of the Gaza Strip to facilitate medical aid for Palestinians civilians wounded in the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Under the plan, Israel is also considering bringing the facility inside the Palestinian territory to make it more accessible for the Palestinians seeking treatment. The hospital would be run by the IDF Medical Corps. Throughout the conflict, IDF has allowed the passage of over 900 trucks and facilitated with the transfer of over 20,000 tons of basic food and supplies.[264]
As the Palestinian death toll exceeded 900, in a statement the IDF said it believes 400 of those are known Hamas fighters, adding that a "significant number are also Hamas operatives" in the remaining 500 dead.[264]
13 January 2009
Israel's land, sea and air bombardment continues for an 18th day, with shelling and air raids hitting Gaza City, Rafah and elsewhere. Israel's military says it hit 60 targets overnight. Ground troops advance into the southern and eastern suburbs of Gaza City. The Israeli military says an officer and two soldiers are injured by an explosion in a booby-trapped house in the northern Gaza Strip.[265]
An unidentified gunman opened fire at an Israeli Border Guard patrol from the Jordanian side of the border north of Eilat early Tuesday morning. The Border Guards returned fire. No one was injured in the incident, the first such shooting in more than a decade.[266]
14 January 2009
Israel's bombardment continues for a 19th day, with overnight air raids on 60 targets, including 35 weapons-smuggling tunnels on the border with Egypt and an unknown number of rocket-launching sites. One air strike damages a cemetery in Gaza City. Israel was targeted from the Lebanese border. Israeli troops counterattacked.[265] No casualties were reported on either side. A message, allegedly by Osama Bin Laden, was released declaring Jihad on Israel.[267]
It is reported by several people, journalist and doctors that the Israeli army fired upon the UNRWA compound, schools, ambulances, hospitals and media offices. In response to this, Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary general, has started a protest. [268][269] [270][271]
15 January 2009
Israeli tanks and troops advance deep into Gaza City after an intense bombardment in the early hours, sending hundreds of terrified civilians into the streets to try to flee the fighting. Tonnes of aid go up in flames after Israeli artillery shells hit a UN compound. The Quds hospital is evacuated because of a fire caused by a tank shell. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon meets Israeli leaders to push for a ceasefire. He says the death toll, put at 1,100 by Gaza medical officials, has reached an "unbearable point".[265]
Two rockets fired by Gaza militants on Thursday hit Be'er Sheva, wounding five people, including a 7-year-old boy who was seriously hurt. One of the rockets landed directly on a car.[272]
In a battle near Jebaliya, an IDF soldier was killed and another was severely wounded. The IAF attacked over 15 sites, including rocket-launching sites and squads, armed gunmen, and a smuggling tunnel. The IDF also said that 40 Hamas operatives have been killed overnight.[273]
Three senior members of Hamas, Said Seyam, the Hamas interior minister and his brother Ayad Seyam and an unidentified person was killed in a IAF strike on Ayad Seyam's house. 20 other people were reportedly injured in the same strike.[274] Palestinian sources said that the head of Islamist terrorist group's security apparatus, Salah Abu Shreh, and its military commander in Gaza City, Mahmoud Watfah, were also killed in the attack. Hamas, despite the truce proposal, vowed revenge for the assassination of Seyam, who was one of the masterminds of the 2007 coup against the ruling party, Fatah and was the number three most sought Hamas leader after Ismail Haniyeh and Mahmoud Zahar. Shin Bet security agency, the Israeli equivalent of the CIA, were responsible for the intelligence leading to the airstrike that killed Seyam.[275]
16 January 2009
The bodies of 23 Palestinians were pulled from the rubble in the Tel al-Hawa district of Gaza City after Israeli tanks withdraw in the pre-dawn hours. Palestinian medics say at least 1,155 Palestinians have died over the past three weeks.[276]
Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip on Friday, January 16, fired over 15 rockets at southern Israel, leaving five Israelis wounded: a pregnant woman was hospitalized in Ashkelon after her home suffered a direct hit from a rocket; two were wounded in Ashdod - one moderately and the other lightly; earlier three Israelis sustained light wounds when two Grad rockets struck the southern town of Kiryat Gat; five rockets exploded in the Eshkol region in the morning.[277]
17 January 2009
More than 50 air strikes were carried out in Gaza overnight, ahead of the expected vote by Israel's cabinet on a proposal for a ceasefire. Heavy explosions echoed south of Gaza City.
United Nations officials say two children, aged five and seven, were killed when Israeli tank fire hit a UN school where hundreds had taken shelter in the northern town of Beit Lahiya. A UN spokesman, Chris Gunness, said an investigation ought to be held "to determine whether a war crime has been committed". Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor rejected the call, saying: "There's not the slightest piece of evidence to support such allegations." [265]
18 January 2009
Israel implemented a unilateral cease-fire early Sunday and in announcing the cease-fire late Saturday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel had achieved its goals and more, stating that "Hamas was hit hard, in its military arms and in its government institutions. Its leaders are in hiding and many of its men have been killed." According to Olmert's statement, the cease-fire went into effect at 2 a.m. local time (00.00 GMT) with the IDF warning that attacks on soldiers or civilians "will be met with a harsh response." If Hamas holds its fire, the military "will weigh pulling out of Gaza at a time that befits us," Olmert said. If not, Israel "will continue to act to defend our residents."[278]
The first death after the cease-fire was a Palestinian farmer who was shot dead by Israeli soldier while checking his farm in Khan Younis, on January 18 morning. The Israeli army said they shot the farmer because he was approaching land occupied at that moment by Israeli ground troops.[279]
Hamas fired ten rockets into Southern Israel, Israel responded with airstrikes.[280]
Hamas made a televised announcement of a ceasefire issuing their own demands of Israeli withdrawal within a week, reopen Gaza border crossings, and provide aid.[280]
20 January 2009
On Tuesday afternoon, Gaza gunmen fired at IDF patrols in two separate incidents near the Kissufim border crossing, in central Gaza, and in southern Gaza - IDF returned fire. No one was wounded and no significant damage was reported.[281][282] Also, eight mortar shells were fired from the central Gaza Strip. Most shells apparently landed in Palestinian areas. IAF targeted and hit one of the mortar launchers.[281][283] Shelling of mortars continued Tuesday night and 3-4 shells were fired at Eshkol Regional Council. No casualties were reported.[284] On the same day, another Palestinian farmer was shot dead by the IDF while approaching his farm in Jabalia and two children were killed in an explosion of an Israeli bomb left behind in Gaza City.[285][286]
21 January 2009
Early in the day, Israel said it had completed its troop pull-out from Gaza. [287]
22 January 2009
In the wake of the conflict, Hamas is accusing rival Palestinian faction Fatah of spying for Israel. Fatah denies spying on Hamas for Israel, and party leaders said Thursday that at least 175 of their members had been rounded up and tortured in recent days.[288]
Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Gaza_War
Francis A. Boyle: War Crimes
Israel's Crimes against Palestinians: War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity, Genocide
by Francis A. Boyle
(The author served as Legal Adviser to the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East peace Negotiations from 1991 to 1993. The viewpoints expressed here are his own.)
The International Laws of Belligerent Occupation
Belligerent occupation is governed by The Hague Regulations of 1907, as well as by the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, and the customary laws of belligerent occupation. Security Council Resolution 1322 (2000), paragraph 3 continued: "Calls upon Israel, the occupying Power, to abide scrupulously by its legal obligations and its responsibilities under the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in a Time of War of 12 August 1949;..." Again, the Security Council vote was 14 to 0, becoming obligatory international law.
The Fourth Geneva Convention applies to the West Bank, to the Gaza Strip, and to the entire City of Jerusalem, in order to protect the Palestinians living there. The Palestinian People living in this Palestinian Land are "protected persons" within the meaning of the Fourth Geneva Convention. All of their rights are sacred under international law.
There are 149 substantive articles of the Fourth Geneva Convention that protect the rights of every one of these Palestinians living in occupied Palestine. The Israeli Government is currently violating, and has since 1967 been violating, almost each and every one of these sacred rights of the Palestinian People recognized by the Fourth Geneva Convention. Indeed, violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention are war crimes.
So this is not a symmetrical situation. As matters of fact and of law, the gross and repeated violations of Palestinian rights by the Israeli army and Israeli settlers living illegally in occupied Palestine constitute war crimes. Conversely, the Palestinian People are defending Themselves and their Land and their Homes against Israeli war crimes and Israeli war criminals, both military and civilian.
The U.N. Human Rights Commission
Indeed, it is far more serious than that. On 19 October 2000 a Special Session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights adopted a Resolution set forth in U.N. Document E/CN.4/S-5/L.2/Rev. 1, "Condemning the provocative visit to Al-Haram Al-Sharif on 28 September 2000 by Ariel Sharon, the Likud party leader, which triggered the tragic events that followed in occupied East Jerusalem and the other occupied Palestinian territories, resulting in a high number of deaths and injuries among Palestinian civilians." The U.N. Human Rights Commission then said it was "[g]ravely concerned" about several different types of atrocities inflicted by Israel upon the Palestinian People, which it denominated "war crimes, flagrant violations of international humanitarian law and crimes against humanity."
In operative paragraph 1 of its 19 October 2000 Resolution, the U.N. Human Rights Commission then: "Strongly condemns the disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force in violation of international humanitarian law by the Israeli occupying Power against innocent and unarmed Palestinian civilians...including many children, in the occupied territories, which constitutes a war crime and a crime against humanity;..." And in paragraph 5 of its 19 October 2000 Resolution, the U.N. Human Rights Commission: "Also affirms that the deliberate and systematic killing of civilians and children by the Israeli occupying authorities constitutes a flagrant and grave violation of the right to life and also constitutes a crime against humanity;..." Article 68 of the United Nations Charter had expressly required the U.N.'s Economic and Social Council to "set up" this Commission "for the promotion of human rights."
Israel's War Crimes against Palestinians
We all have a general idea of what a war crime is, so I am not going to elaborate upon that term here. But there are different degrees of heinousness for war crimes. In particular are the more serious war crimes denominated "grave breaches" of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Since the start of the Al Aqsa Intifada, the world has seen those inflicted every day by Israel against the Palestinian People living in occupied Palestine: e.g., willful killing of Palestinian civilians by the Israeli army and Israel's illegal paramilitary settlers. These Israeli "grave breaches" of the Fourth Geneva Convention mandate universal prosecution for their perpetrators, whether military or civilian, as well as prosecution for their commanders, whether military or civilian, including Israel's political leaders.
Israel's Crimes Against Humanity against Palestinians
But I want to focus for a moment on Israel's "crime against humanity" against the Palestinian People -- as determined by the U.N. Human Rights Commission itself, set up pursuant to the requirements of the United Nations Charter. What is a "crime against humanity"? This concept goes all the way back to the Nuremberg Charter of 1945 for the trial of the major Nazi war criminals. And in the Nuremberg Charter of 1945, drafted by the United States Government, there was created and inserted a new type of international crime specifically intended to deal with the Nazi persecution of the Jewish People.
The paradigmatic example of a "crime against humanity" is what Hitler and the Nazis did to the Jewish People. This is where the concept of crime against humanity came from. And this is what the U.N. Human Rights Commission determined that Israel is currently doing to the Palestinian People: Crimes against humanity. Legally, just like what Hitler and the Nazis did to the Jews.
The Precursor to Genocide
Moreover, a crime against humanity is the direct historical and legal precursor to the international crime of genocide as defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The theory here was that what Hitler and the Nazis did to the Jewish People required a special international treaty that would codify and universalize the Nuremberg concept of "crime against humanity." And that treaty ultimately became the 1948 Genocide Convention.
In fairness, you will note that the U.N. Human Rights Commission did not go so far as to condemn Israel for committing genocide against the Palestinian People. But it has condemned Israel for committing crimes against humanity, which is the direct precursor to genocide. And I submit that if something is not done quite soon by the American People and the International Community to stop Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity against the Palestinian People, it could very well degenerate into genocide, if Israel is not there already. And in this regard, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is what international lawyers call a genocidaire--one who has already committed genocide in the past.
Mr. Francis A. Boyle is a Professor in International Law.
Source:
by courtesy & © 2001 Francis Boyle
Taken from http://www.mediamonitors.net/francis7.html
by Francis A. Boyle
(The author served as Legal Adviser to the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East peace Negotiations from 1991 to 1993. The viewpoints expressed here are his own.)
The International Laws of Belligerent Occupation
Belligerent occupation is governed by The Hague Regulations of 1907, as well as by the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, and the customary laws of belligerent occupation. Security Council Resolution 1322 (2000), paragraph 3 continued: "Calls upon Israel, the occupying Power, to abide scrupulously by its legal obligations and its responsibilities under the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in a Time of War of 12 August 1949;..." Again, the Security Council vote was 14 to 0, becoming obligatory international law.
The Fourth Geneva Convention applies to the West Bank, to the Gaza Strip, and to the entire City of Jerusalem, in order to protect the Palestinians living there. The Palestinian People living in this Palestinian Land are "protected persons" within the meaning of the Fourth Geneva Convention. All of their rights are sacred under international law.
There are 149 substantive articles of the Fourth Geneva Convention that protect the rights of every one of these Palestinians living in occupied Palestine. The Israeli Government is currently violating, and has since 1967 been violating, almost each and every one of these sacred rights of the Palestinian People recognized by the Fourth Geneva Convention. Indeed, violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention are war crimes.
So this is not a symmetrical situation. As matters of fact and of law, the gross and repeated violations of Palestinian rights by the Israeli army and Israeli settlers living illegally in occupied Palestine constitute war crimes. Conversely, the Palestinian People are defending Themselves and their Land and their Homes against Israeli war crimes and Israeli war criminals, both military and civilian.
The U.N. Human Rights Commission
Indeed, it is far more serious than that. On 19 October 2000 a Special Session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights adopted a Resolution set forth in U.N. Document E/CN.4/S-5/L.2/Rev. 1, "Condemning the provocative visit to Al-Haram Al-Sharif on 28 September 2000 by Ariel Sharon, the Likud party leader, which triggered the tragic events that followed in occupied East Jerusalem and the other occupied Palestinian territories, resulting in a high number of deaths and injuries among Palestinian civilians." The U.N. Human Rights Commission then said it was "[g]ravely concerned" about several different types of atrocities inflicted by Israel upon the Palestinian People, which it denominated "war crimes, flagrant violations of international humanitarian law and crimes against humanity."
In operative paragraph 1 of its 19 October 2000 Resolution, the U.N. Human Rights Commission then: "Strongly condemns the disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force in violation of international humanitarian law by the Israeli occupying Power against innocent and unarmed Palestinian civilians...including many children, in the occupied territories, which constitutes a war crime and a crime against humanity;..." And in paragraph 5 of its 19 October 2000 Resolution, the U.N. Human Rights Commission: "Also affirms that the deliberate and systematic killing of civilians and children by the Israeli occupying authorities constitutes a flagrant and grave violation of the right to life and also constitutes a crime against humanity;..." Article 68 of the United Nations Charter had expressly required the U.N.'s Economic and Social Council to "set up" this Commission "for the promotion of human rights."
Israel's War Crimes against Palestinians
We all have a general idea of what a war crime is, so I am not going to elaborate upon that term here. But there are different degrees of heinousness for war crimes. In particular are the more serious war crimes denominated "grave breaches" of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Since the start of the Al Aqsa Intifada, the world has seen those inflicted every day by Israel against the Palestinian People living in occupied Palestine: e.g., willful killing of Palestinian civilians by the Israeli army and Israel's illegal paramilitary settlers. These Israeli "grave breaches" of the Fourth Geneva Convention mandate universal prosecution for their perpetrators, whether military or civilian, as well as prosecution for their commanders, whether military or civilian, including Israel's political leaders.
Israel's Crimes Against Humanity against Palestinians
But I want to focus for a moment on Israel's "crime against humanity" against the Palestinian People -- as determined by the U.N. Human Rights Commission itself, set up pursuant to the requirements of the United Nations Charter. What is a "crime against humanity"? This concept goes all the way back to the Nuremberg Charter of 1945 for the trial of the major Nazi war criminals. And in the Nuremberg Charter of 1945, drafted by the United States Government, there was created and inserted a new type of international crime specifically intended to deal with the Nazi persecution of the Jewish People.
The paradigmatic example of a "crime against humanity" is what Hitler and the Nazis did to the Jewish People. This is where the concept of crime against humanity came from. And this is what the U.N. Human Rights Commission determined that Israel is currently doing to the Palestinian People: Crimes against humanity. Legally, just like what Hitler and the Nazis did to the Jews.
The Precursor to Genocide
Moreover, a crime against humanity is the direct historical and legal precursor to the international crime of genocide as defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The theory here was that what Hitler and the Nazis did to the Jewish People required a special international treaty that would codify and universalize the Nuremberg concept of "crime against humanity." And that treaty ultimately became the 1948 Genocide Convention.
In fairness, you will note that the U.N. Human Rights Commission did not go so far as to condemn Israel for committing genocide against the Palestinian People. But it has condemned Israel for committing crimes against humanity, which is the direct precursor to genocide. And I submit that if something is not done quite soon by the American People and the International Community to stop Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity against the Palestinian People, it could very well degenerate into genocide, if Israel is not there already. And in this regard, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is what international lawyers call a genocidaire--one who has already committed genocide in the past.
Mr. Francis A. Boyle is a Professor in International Law.
Source:
by courtesy & © 2001 Francis Boyle
Taken from http://www.mediamonitors.net/francis7.html
GEORGE E. BISHARAT:War Crimes
Israel Is Committing War Crimes
Hamas's violations are no justification for Israel's actions.
By GEORGE E. BISHARAT
Israel's current assault on the Gaza Strip cannot be justified by self-defense. Rather, it involves serious violations of international law, including war crimes. Senior Israeli political and military leaders may bear personal liability for their offenses, and they could be prosecuted by an international tribunal, or by nations practicing universal jurisdiction over grave international crimes. Hamas fighters have also violated the laws of warfare, but their misdeeds do not justify Israel's acts.
The United Nations charter preserved the customary right of a state to retaliate against an "armed attack" from another state. The right has evolved to cover nonstate actors operating beyond the borders of the state claiming self-defense, and arguably would apply to Hamas. However, an armed attack involves serious violations of the peace. Minor border skirmishes are common, and if all were considered armed attacks, states could easily exploit them -- as surrounding facts are often murky and unverifiable -- to launch wars of aggression. That is exactly what Israel seems to be currently attempting.
Israel had not suffered an "armed attack" immediately prior to its bombardment of the Gaza Strip. Since firing the first Kassam rocket into Israel in 2002, Hamas and other Palestinian groups have loosed thousands of rockets and mortar shells into Israel, causing about two dozen Israeli deaths and widespread fear. As indiscriminate attacks on civilians, these were war crimes. During roughly the same period, Israeli forces killed about 2,700 Palestinians in Gaza by targeted killings, aerial bombings, in raids, etc., according to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem.
But on June 19, 2008, Hamas and Israel commenced a six-month truce. Neither side complied perfectly. Israel refused to substantially ease the suffocating siege of Gaza imposed in June 2007. Hamas permitted sporadic rocket fire -- typically after Israel killed or seized Hamas members in the West Bank, where the truce did not apply. Either one or no Israelis were killed (reports differ) by rockets in the half year leading up to the current attack.
Israel then broke the truce on Nov. 4, raiding the Gaza Strip and killing a Palestinian. Hamas retaliated with rocket fire; Israel then killed five more Palestinians. In the following days, Hamas continued rocket fire -- yet still no Israelis died. Israel cannot claim self-defense against this escalation, because it was provoked by Israel's own violation.
An armed attack that is not justified by self-defense is a war of aggression. Under the Nuremberg Principles affirmed by U.N. Resolution 95, aggression is a crime against peace.
Israel has also failed to adequately discriminate between military and nonmilitary targets. Israel's American-made F-16s and Apache helicopters have destroyed mosques, the education and justice ministries, a university, prisons, courts and police stations. These institutions were part of Gaza's civilian infrastructure. And when nonmilitary institutions are targeted, civilians die. Many killed in the last week were young police recruits with no military roles. Civilian employees in the Hamas-led government deserve the protections of international law like all others. Hamas's ideology -- which employees may or may not share -- is abhorrent, but civilized nations do not kill people merely for what they think.
Deliberate attacks on civilians that lack strict military necessity are war crimes. Israel's current violations of international law extend a long pattern of abuse of the rights of Gaza Palestinians. Eighty percent of Gaza's 1.5 million residents are Palestinian refugees who were forced from their homes or fled in fear of Jewish terrorist attacks in 1948. For 60 years, Israel has denied the internationally recognized rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes -- because they are not Jews.
Although Israel withdrew its settlers and soldiers from Gaza in 2005, it continues to tightly regulate Gaza's coast, airspace and borders. Thus, Israel remains an occupying power with a legal duty to protect Gaza's civilian population. But Israel's 18-month siege of the Gaza Strip preceding the current crisis violated this obligation egregiously. It brought economic activity to a near standstill, left children hungry and malnourished, and denied Palestinian students opportunities to study abroad.
Israel should be held accountable for its crimes, and the U.S. should stop abetting it with unconditional military and diplomatic support.
Mr. Bisharat is a professor at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco.
Taken from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123154826952369919.html
Hamas's violations are no justification for Israel's actions.
By GEORGE E. BISHARAT
Israel's current assault on the Gaza Strip cannot be justified by self-defense. Rather, it involves serious violations of international law, including war crimes. Senior Israeli political and military leaders may bear personal liability for their offenses, and they could be prosecuted by an international tribunal, or by nations practicing universal jurisdiction over grave international crimes. Hamas fighters have also violated the laws of warfare, but their misdeeds do not justify Israel's acts.
The United Nations charter preserved the customary right of a state to retaliate against an "armed attack" from another state. The right has evolved to cover nonstate actors operating beyond the borders of the state claiming self-defense, and arguably would apply to Hamas. However, an armed attack involves serious violations of the peace. Minor border skirmishes are common, and if all were considered armed attacks, states could easily exploit them -- as surrounding facts are often murky and unverifiable -- to launch wars of aggression. That is exactly what Israel seems to be currently attempting.
Israel had not suffered an "armed attack" immediately prior to its bombardment of the Gaza Strip. Since firing the first Kassam rocket into Israel in 2002, Hamas and other Palestinian groups have loosed thousands of rockets and mortar shells into Israel, causing about two dozen Israeli deaths and widespread fear. As indiscriminate attacks on civilians, these were war crimes. During roughly the same period, Israeli forces killed about 2,700 Palestinians in Gaza by targeted killings, aerial bombings, in raids, etc., according to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem.
But on June 19, 2008, Hamas and Israel commenced a six-month truce. Neither side complied perfectly. Israel refused to substantially ease the suffocating siege of Gaza imposed in June 2007. Hamas permitted sporadic rocket fire -- typically after Israel killed or seized Hamas members in the West Bank, where the truce did not apply. Either one or no Israelis were killed (reports differ) by rockets in the half year leading up to the current attack.
Israel then broke the truce on Nov. 4, raiding the Gaza Strip and killing a Palestinian. Hamas retaliated with rocket fire; Israel then killed five more Palestinians. In the following days, Hamas continued rocket fire -- yet still no Israelis died. Israel cannot claim self-defense against this escalation, because it was provoked by Israel's own violation.
An armed attack that is not justified by self-defense is a war of aggression. Under the Nuremberg Principles affirmed by U.N. Resolution 95, aggression is a crime against peace.
Israel has also failed to adequately discriminate between military and nonmilitary targets. Israel's American-made F-16s and Apache helicopters have destroyed mosques, the education and justice ministries, a university, prisons, courts and police stations. These institutions were part of Gaza's civilian infrastructure. And when nonmilitary institutions are targeted, civilians die. Many killed in the last week were young police recruits with no military roles. Civilian employees in the Hamas-led government deserve the protections of international law like all others. Hamas's ideology -- which employees may or may not share -- is abhorrent, but civilized nations do not kill people merely for what they think.
Deliberate attacks on civilians that lack strict military necessity are war crimes. Israel's current violations of international law extend a long pattern of abuse of the rights of Gaza Palestinians. Eighty percent of Gaza's 1.5 million residents are Palestinian refugees who were forced from their homes or fled in fear of Jewish terrorist attacks in 1948. For 60 years, Israel has denied the internationally recognized rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes -- because they are not Jews.
Although Israel withdrew its settlers and soldiers from Gaza in 2005, it continues to tightly regulate Gaza's coast, airspace and borders. Thus, Israel remains an occupying power with a legal duty to protect Gaza's civilian population. But Israel's 18-month siege of the Gaza Strip preceding the current crisis violated this obligation egregiously. It brought economic activity to a near standstill, left children hungry and malnourished, and denied Palestinian students opportunities to study abroad.
Israel should be held accountable for its crimes, and the U.S. should stop abetting it with unconditional military and diplomatic support.
Mr. Bisharat is a professor at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco.
Taken from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123154826952369919.html
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