"The Israelis are among the most disciplined troops in the world and go to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties." Greg (Jerusalem Prize) Sheridan (See my 8/2/09 post On Planet Sheridan)
"The delegation recorded numerous accounts of Israeli soldiers shooting civilians, including women, children, and the elderly, in the head, chest, and stomach. Another common narrative described Israeli forces rounding civilians into a single location ie, homes or schools which Israeli tanks or warplanes then shelled. Israeli forces continued to shoot at civilians fleeing the targeted structures... We spoke to Ibtisam as-Sammouni, 31, a resident of Zaytoun neighborhood in Gaza City. On January 4, the Israeli army forced approximately 110 of Zaytoun's residents into Ibtisam's home. At approximately 7 am on January 5, the Israeli military launched 2 tank shells at the house without warning killing 2 of Ibtisam's children: Rizka, 14 and Faris, 12. When the survivors attempted to flee, Israeli forces shot at them. Her son Abdullah, 7, was injured in the shelling and remained in the home among his deceased siblings for 4 days before Israeli forces permitted medical personnel into Zaytoun to rescue them. After medical personnel removed the injured persons, an Israeli warplane destroyed the house and it crumbled over the lifeless bodies. The dead remained beneath the rubble for 17 days before the Israeli army permitted medical personnel to remove their bodies for burial. We spoke to the family of Rouhiya an-Najjar, 47, who lived in Khoza'a, Khan Yunis. Israeli forces ordered her neighborhood's residents to march to the city center. Rouhiya led 20 women out of her home and into an alley. They all carried white scarves. Upon entering the alley, an Israeli sniper shot Rouhiya in her left temple killing her instantly. Israeli forces prevented medical personnel from reaching her body for 12 hours." (Strong Indications of Israeli War Crimes, National Lawyers Guild, counterpunch.org, 9/2/09)
"Our findings overwhelmingly point to the use of conventional weapons in a prohibited manner, specifically, the use of battlefield weaponry in densely populated civilian areas. Customary international law forbids the use of weapons calculated to cause unnecessary suffering. We found evidence that Israel used white phosphorus extensively throughout its 3-week offensive in a manner that led to numerous deaths and injuries. For example, Sabah Abu Halima, 45, lived in Bait Lahiya with her husband, 7 boys and 1 girl. It was midday and she and her entire family was home. Within minutes she felt her home shaking and missiles fell through the rooftop. She fell to the ground upon impact. When she looked up, she saw her children burning." (ibid)
"The testimonies [of Israeli soldiers] include a description by an infantry squad leader of an incident where an IDF sharpshooter mistakenly shot a Palestinian mother and her 2 children. 'There was a house with a family inside... We put them in a room. Later we left the house and another platoon entered it, and a few days after that there was an order to release the family. They had set up positions upstairs. There was a sniper position on the roof', the soldier said. 'The platoon commander let the family go and told them to go to the right. One mother and her 2 children didn't understand and went to the left, but they forgot to tell the sharpshooter on the roof they had let them go and it was OK, and he should hold his fire and he... he did what he was supposed to, like he was following his orders'. According to the squad leader: 'The sharpshooter saw a woman and children approaching him, closer than the lines he was told no one should pass. He shot them straight away... I don't think he felt too bad about it, because... as far as he was concerned, he did his job according to the orders he was given. And the atmosphere in general... I don't know how to describe it... The lives of Palestinians, let's say, is something very, very less important than the lives of our soldiers...' Another squad leader from the same brigade told of an incident where the company commander ordered that an elderly Palestinian woman be shot and killed; she was walking on a road about 100 meters from a house the company had commandeered. The squad leader said he argued with his commander over the permissive rules of engagement that allowed the clearing out of houses by shooting without warning the residents beforehand. After the orders were changed, the squad leader's soldiers complained that 'we should kill everyone there [in the center of Gaza]. Everyone there is a terrorist'. The squad leader said: 'You do not get the impression from the officers that there is any logic to it, but they won't say anything. To write 'death to the Arabs' on the walls, to take family pictures and spit on them, just because you can. I think this is the main thing: To understand how much the IDF has fallen in the realm of ethics, really. It's what I'll remember the most'." (IDF in Gaza: Killing civilians, vandalism, & lax rules of engagement, Amos Harel, Haaretz, 19/3/09)
"Dead babies, mothers weeping on their children's graves, a gun aimed at a child and bombed-out mosques - these are a few examples of the images Israel Defense Forces soldiers design these days to print on shirts they order to mark the end of training, or of field duty. The slogans accompanying the drawings are not exactly anemic either: A T-shirt for infantry snipers bears the inscription, 'Better use Durex', next to a picture of a dead Palestinian baby, with his weeping mother and a teddy bear beside him. A sharpshooter's T-shirt from the Givati Brigade's Shaked battalion shows a pregnant Palestinian woman with a bull's-eye superimposed on her belly, with the slogan, in English, '1 shot, 2 kills'.' (Dead Palestinian babies & bombed mosques - IDF fashion 2009, Uri Blau, Haaretz, 20/3/09)
"Rules of Engagement: Open fire also upon rescue', was handwritten in Hebrew on a sheet of paper found in one of the Palestinian homes the Israel Defense Forces took over during Operation Cast Lead." (IDF soldiers ordered to shoot at Gaza rescuers, note says, Amira Hass, Haaretz, 22/3/09)
Savages.
13 comments:
And your point is?
No what is your point , who are you trying to convince about the poor Palestinians , you are already preaching to the converted.
You come up with all this crap on a daily basis, you are really obsessed with all this , you need a holiday , a changes on scenery and perhaps a hobby.. nothing regurgitate form al Guardian. al age, Syrian morning Herald , aljazeera or even the odd Haaretz left wing crap will change anything .
The Palestinians will continue to live in the past, fight each other and keep on playing the victims.
Israeli's will plod on and manage the situation the best they can.
Get a Life Merc you sound angry use all that energy more positively..
So would you recommend your own hobby - trolling such sites as MERC and depositing the same old inane and irrelevant comments again and again?
Judging by the number of comments [ or lack of] you should be happy someone like me takes any notice or even reads all this stuff..
Let me give you the big tip merc if you were a business you would have gone broke ages ago form lack of customers , what does that tell you ?
perhaps you are flogging the wrong product and old well used out of date subject that nobody except you Shepherd, Karakar, Muhgrabi, Loewenstein and a few other old fart Socialist Islamists that don't have anything else in their lives to worry about.
Have a Nice day
You actually "read all this stuff"?! Zounds! I had no idea you could read. But then there is the trifling matter of comprehension...
Keep it up MERC. A crucial lesson from the Shoah is that those who do nothing are complicit. (Not as bad as those who actively kill or de-humanise the victims, but complicit)
By the way, see http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25233839-2703,00.html
The situation is so awful that even The Australian is forced to report on some of it.
Incredible! I was going to tell the bugger he was complicit, but then I thought, what's the use? he doesn't have any books in the house, let alone a dictionary. BTW, he's going to LOVE my next post...
My dear Zionist friend, you're sounding like the proverbial broken record. You've already raised the above irrelevance in a previous thread (Who Can It Be? 13/3/09), but failed to answer my question at the end. Still waiting...
I just don't like the sound of my own bleating as much as you do, original 3 anons. Merc is doing a great job. You however, as stated above, are complicit in crimes against humanity and are willfully ignorant. If you don't like what Merc writes, don't read it.
www.pmw.org.il
Warning: Hasbara site. Proceed only with grains of salt.
Fill in the dots."The ..... settlers who came to be known as.....,were stern.....who thought of themselvs as a chosen and superior race and applied the somewhat harsh dogmas of the .....not only to their own lives but to the OTHER peoples whom they encountered." "The Modern World, a History of Our Time, volume 1"Gordon Greenwood Phd.
And your point is?
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