Israel – Page 7 – praag.org

Israel using flechette shells in Gaza

The Israeli military is using flechette shells, which spray out thousands of tiny and potentially lethal metal darts, in its military operation in Gaza.

Six flechette shells were fired towards the village of Khuzaa, east of Khan Younis, on 17 July, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. Nahla Khalil Najjar, 37, suffered injuries to her chest, it said. PCHR provided a picture of flechettes taken by a fieldworker last week.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) did not deny using the shells in the conflict. “As a rule, the IDF only employs weapons that have been determined lawful under international law, and in a manner which fully conforms with the laws of armed conflict,” a spokesperson said in response to a request for specific comment on the deployment of flechettes.

B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organisation, describes a flechette shell as “an anti-personnel weapon that is generally fired from a tank. The shell explodes in the air and releases thousands of metal darts 37.5mm in length, which disperse in a conical arch 300 metres long and about 90 metres wide”.

The munitions are not prohibited under international humanitarian law, but according to B’Tselem, “other rules of humanitarian law render their use in the Gaza Strip illegal. One of the most fundamental principles is the obligation to distinguish between those who are involved and those who are not involved in the fighting, and to avoid to the extent possible injury to those who are not involved. Deriving from this principle is the prohibition of the use of an imprecise weapon which is likely to result in civilian injuries.”

The legality of flechette munitions was upheld by the Israeli supreme court in 2002, and according to an Israeli military source, they are particularly effective against enemy fighters operating in areas covered by vegetation.

The source said a number of armies around the world deploy flechette shells, and that they were intended solely for use against legitimate military targets in accordance with international law.

The IDF has deployed flechette shells in Gaza and Lebanon before. B’Tselem has documented the deaths of nine Palestinians in Gaza from flechettes in 2001 and 2002. Flechettes have also killed and wounded dozens of civilians, including women and children, in conflicts between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Source: The Guardian

Hundreds of Japanese hold silent protest on Gaza

Hundreds staged a silent protest in Tokyo against the bloodshed in Gaza on Monday, the biggest such gathering in the Japanese capital since the violence began early this month, organizers said.

As night fell demonstrators holding candles formed huge letters spelling “Gaza” in a city park, and offered a one-minute prayer for victims of the violence in the Palestinian territory.

Some waved Palestinian flags while others carried signs reading: “Stop the killing in Gaza. Japan cares.”

“We want people in Gaza to know that they are not isolated from the world,” said Sonoko Kawakami, one of the organizers.

“Gaza is far from Japan, but we are going to continue to do whatever we can do here.”

Leading members of the Muslim, Christian, Buddhist and Jewish faiths delivered brief messages calling for an end to the violence.

The Palestinian death toll in Gaza has now topped 500, the overwhelming majority of them civilians. Israel said 18 of its soldiers had been killed, its heaviest losses in eight years, along with two civilians.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrations have been held in recent weeks in cities across Europe, along with smaller protests in Asia.

In France they have spiraled into violent clashes with riot police, leading to dozens of arrests.

Nobel Peace Prize winners call for arms embargo on Israel

Seven Nobel Peace Prize winners were amongst the 64 public figures calling for an international arms embargo on Israel for its “war crimes and possible crimes against humanity” in Gaza. The statement came in a letter published in Britain’s The Guardian on Friday.

“Israel has once again unleashed the full force of its military against the captive Palestinian population, particularly in the besieged Gaza Strip, in an inhumane and illegal act of military aggression. Israel’s ability to launch such devastating attacks with impunity largely stems from the vast international military cooperation and trade that it maintains with complicit governments across the world,” read the statement.

“We call on the UN and governments across the world to take immediate steps to implement a comprehensive and legally binding military embargo on Israel, similar to that imposed on South Africa during apartheid,” the letter concluded.

Among the signators were Nobel peace laureates Desmond Tutu, Betty Williams, Federico Mayor Zaragoza, Jody Williams, Adolfo Peres Esquivel, Mairead Maguire and Rigoberto Menchu.

Also signing were academics Noam Chomsky and Rashid Khalidi, filmmakers Mike Leigh and Ken Loach, musicians Roger Waters and Brian Eno, writers Alice Walker and Caryl Churchill, and journalists John Pilger and Chris Hedges. Two Israelis, academics Ilan Pappe and Nurit Peled, signed the letter as well.

Gaza: France experiencing ‘torrent of internet hate’

Given the many threats of violence and murder they have to deal with, moderators struggle to cope psychologically.

The deadly Israeli offensive in Gaza has unleashed a torrent of hate on media websites and social networks in France that moderators find increasingly difficult to contain.

The bombardment by land, sea and air that has killed at least 425 Palestinians has enflamed tensions far afield from the Middle East, especially in France with its large Muslim and Jewish communities.

Paris protests in support of Gaza residents have degenerated into violence on several occasions.

“As soon as you talk about Israel, it crystallises all passions, with up to 20 000 or 30 000 comments sometimes after an article, of which we will only let five to 10 percent through,” said David Corchia, head of Concileo, a firm of moderators that counts the dailies Le Figaro and Liberation as clients.

Helped by software that automatically reports suspect keywords, online moderators can filter comments in accordance with special legal requirements in France as well as client requests. Those laws ban racist, anti-Semitic or discriminatory messages among others, as well calls for violence.

The moderators have little time to decide whether to let a remark through, and generally block 25 to 40 percent of comments.

But on the subject of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the rejection rate can reach 95 percent.

“There are three times as many comments than normal, all linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” said Jeremie Mani, head of Netino, which looks after the websites of the Le Monde daily, Europe 1 radio and major French television channels.

Netino’s 250 moderators, most of them based in Madagascar, deal with tens of millions of comments every month.

“We see racist or anti-Semitic messages, very violent, that also take aim at politicians and the media, sometimes by giving journalists’ contact details,” Mani said.

“This sickening content is peculiar to this conflict. The war in Syria does not trigger these kinds of comments.

“On the pro-Palestinian side, identical messages are posted on dozens of sites. On the pro-Israeli side, there are fewer messages but they are better organised,” he said.

The vitriolic messages about the conflict come up not only after content about the conflict itself — but can be found under any subject.

“On an article about the Tour de France, after four comments it’s about Gaza,” said Mani.

“On one story about salmon fishing, I saw a comment saying: ‘Stop talking about this, the problem is there are too many Jews’.

“Without any moderation, these hate messages would invade everything, particularly as they quickly breed followers.”

Media sites are not the only platforms that fall victim to violent messages. Public spaces on social networks such as the Facebook pages of famous people are targeted, and those comments are first published before they can be removed.

And while the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict may generate a large amount of vitriol, other issues with a racial or ethnic element do too.

Corchia said that when a teacher was stabbed to death by a student’s mother in front of her young pupils earlier this month, racist messages began pouring in as soon as the foreign-sounding name of the assailant was revealed.

And when a former local election candidate for the Front National was given a nine-month jail sentence this week for comparing France’s black justice minister, Christiane Taubira, to a monkey, Corchia said that on one story, moderators were only able to publish 500 comments out of 10,000.

“We watch for word associations. For example, any allusion to World War II is eliminated,” he said.

Pierre Duhau-Laurent, marketing director for Atchik Services, which moderates the websites of the French presidency and the Le Parisien daily, said “organised propaganda” was currently sweeping social networks at night.

“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has bought sponsored tweets for his messages. And Hamas’s response is just as organised,” he said.

Given the many threats of violence and murder they have to deal with, moderators struggle to cope psychologically.

Palestinian civilians props in a public relations war

Israeli commanders are trying to strangle Hamas from all directions. But the only certainty is that Gaza’s hospitals become more crowded by the day.

As I pointed out on November 23, 2012, “Hamas hides among unwitting civilians, who have no way of controlling its activities. This fact does not give Israel the right to kill innocent non-combatants, not even unintentionally. Besides, murder is not ‘unintentional’ when you know it is inevitable.”

Still, from the fact that the Palestinian side sustains more casualties—it does not necessarily follow that they are the innocent party in the dispute. It’s not Israel’s fault, moreover, that its population is well-protected by rocket-repelling technology, mandatory bomb shelters and that Israelis benefit from an all-round, well-organized emergency response. Who among us would tolerate living with a constant barrage of bombs from our neighbors? If Gaza, which was ceded by Israel to the dogs of war (Hamas), has nothing by way of safety infrastructure, it is because its leaders invest in terrorism instead of in trade.

Ultimately, and as National Post’s Lorne Gunter astutely observed many years ago, “If Palestinians stopped their attacks today, tomorrow there would be no Israeli attacks.” But if Israel stopped unilaterally, Palestinians would be at it again in no time.

The latest developments, via DEBKAfile: “Israel air, sea and artillery pounded the Gaza Strip Thursday night, July 17, as IDF ground forces embarked on a ground attack, just announced by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Debkafile reports a softening-up operation to prepare for the entry of armored and infantry units. The IDF calls on the half million Gazans of southern towns of Khan Younes and Rafah to leave their homes for their own safety. Israelis living close to the Gaza border were advised to stay in bomb shelters.”

By the Telegraph’s telling, “Israel’s leaders are grimly aware of the risks they are taking by sending troops to fight in the crowded alleys of Gaza. Now that their forces are embroiled in this urban maze, they will lose much of their technological advantage against Hamas gunmen. One Israeli soldier was duly killed within hours of the invasion starting.”

Yet Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, believes that a ground operation is the only way to stop the rocket attacks. Meanwhile, Mr Masri made clear that the Hamas viewed it as a chance to inflict casualties on its enemy. “The Zionist army is very surprised by what the resistance possesses,” he said. “The resistance attacked tanks and Humvees with missiles and went behind enemy lines to conduct intelligence operations.”
But Israel is now fighting Hamas by land, sea and air. Two jet fighters soared overhead like silver arrowheads yesterday, scattering decoy flares across a cloudless summer sky.
Sa’ar Class missile boats from the Israeli navy have grown bold enough to pound their targets from close to the shore, although Hamas struck back with a missile that fell just short of its target, sending up a plume of white water.
Israeli commanders are trying to strangle Hamas from all directions. But the only certainty is that Gaza’s hospitals become more crowded by the day.

I tend to agree with Hamas that “Israel’s ground offensive is ‘foolish’ and will have ‘dreadful consequences.’” Since the Hamasniks consider their population no more than props in a public relations war, Palestinian casualties affect them not at all.

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62 Palestinians killed in Gaza ‘massacre’ as death toll exceeds 400

At least 62 Palestinians were killed on Sunday in Israeli shelling of a Gaza neighborhood that left bodies strewn in the streets and thousands fleeing for shelter to a hospital packed with wounded, Palestinian witnesses and officials said.

The Israeli military said militants from Gaza’s dominant Hamas group responded with anti-tank missiles and heavy weapon fire in some of the bloodiest fighting since Israel launched its Gaza offensive 13 days ago.

A two-hour “humanitarian ceasefire” in the area, agreed by both sides at the request of the International Committee of the Red Cross, broke down in minutes with each side blaming the other.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of carrying out a massacre and declared three days of mourning. The Israeli military said Hamas had fired rockets and built tunnels and command centers in Sheja and that it had warned locals to evacuate two days earlier. Its ground forces were backed up by air strikes and artillery, the army added.

Anguished cries of “Did you see Ahmed?” “Did you see my wife?” echoed through the courtyard of Gaza’s Shifa hospital, where panicked residents of Shejaia gathered in family groups. Inside, bodies and wounded lay on blood-stained floors.

Elderly men there said the Israeli attack was the fiercest they had seen since the 1967 Middle East war, when Israel captured Gaza.

Shifa hospital’s director, Naser Tattar, said 17 children, 14 women and four elderly were among the 62 dead, and about 400 people were wounded in the Israeli assault.

Death toll exceeds 400

Gaza’s Health Ministry officials said at least 403 Palestinians, many of them civilians, have been killed and about 2,600 wounded in the 13-day offensive, that Israel says it launched to halt mounting cross-border rocket fire by militants.

On Israel’s side, two civilians have been killed by cross-border fire and five soldiers have died in fighting. More than 50 Israeli troops have been wounded, hospital officials said.

Thousands fled Shejaia, some by foot and others piling into the backs of trucks and sitting on the hoods of cars filled with families trying to get away. Several people rode out of the neighborhood of 100,000 in the shovel of a bulldozer.

Video given to Reuters by a local showed at least a dozen corpses, including three children, lying in rubble-filled streets, though the footage could not be verified independently.

As the tank shells began to land, Shejaia residents called radio stations pleading for evacuation. An air strike on the Shejaia home of Khalil al-Hayya, a senior Hamas official, killed his son, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren, hospital officials said.

Israel, which has accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields by launching rockets from residential areas, sent ground forces into the Gaza Strip on Thursday after 10 days of air, naval and artillery barrages failed to stop the salvoes.

The military said it beefed up its presence on Sunday, with a focus on destroying missile stockpiles and a vast tunnel system Hamas built along the frontier with Israel.

“It has been a tough day of combat, but it won’t deter us,” Israeli Finance Minister Yair Lapid said, without referring to events in Shejaia.

“The operation is necessary and, if needed, we will broaden it,” he told reporters while visiting wounded Israeli soldiers in a hospital in the southern city of Beersheba. – Reuters

Why Israel will fall

Ever since Hitler not one Western country with a single (exclusive) identity has been allowed to exist.

The chaos caused by the highly controversial (Obama mandated?) reintroduction of the word “God” and the sentence “Jerusalem is the capital of Israel” at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, is ominously foreboding of the fate that awaits Israel in the near future.

Ironically enough, it is mainly due to the utopianism of secular Jews that Israel now finds herself in the current predicament where she is increasingly vilified by the world media and protesters in the world’s capitals. From Karl Marx to KGB agent Joe Slovo (Mandela’s mentor/handler) in South Africa, these secular Jews have done their utmost to destroy cultural and racial hegemony in the name of global “Equality/Diversity”.

Jerusalem, a physical territory, is symbolic of the wider physical territory called Israel. And the State of Israel is defined by a single (exclusive) identity namely Jewishness. And that is why Israel will fall.

Ever since Hitler not one Western country with a single (exclusive) identity has been allowed to exist. Apartheid South Africa’s whites-only territory is no more, like Milosevic’s Orthodox Christian-only Yugoslavia.

The same fate awaits Israel. Its singular identity, its Jewishness, is also its Achilles heel; for the rights of the individual and the rights of non-territorial groupings is the flavor of the month in the year dominated by Pax Americana.

According to the Ten Commandments of Pax Americana, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a gay, an African, a Muslim, a Jew, et cetera, has the a-historical right to exercise his/her unique individuality in any physical territory under direct dominion of the West.

These same rights are afforded to all other non-territorial groupings like, for example, lesbians and the illegal Hispanic immigrants in Arizona – and the Somalis (and other Africans) gathered together in the world’s largest detention centre (in Saharonim) and then deported from Israeli territory.

The quirks of History never cease to amaze. Not unlike the Germanic tribes with their Völkerwanderung, the Jewish tribes had to literally wander the earth for ages in order to finally find their Heimat…only to be denied that final place of rest where they can simply be themselves and enjoy the fruits of that which they have struggled and suffered for, for so long.

Is this fair? Does anybody in the world have the moral right to deny the Jews their Heimat called Israel – a tiny 20 770 square kilometer territory in the Middle East? Haven’t the Jews suffered enough, especially given the fact that they have been physically kicked out of more than 100 countries during the past 1800 years, and have suffered innumerable pogroms – the latest being the Crown Heights Riot in Brooklyn, New York, in 1991.

Obviously this is not fair, but that is obviously also not good enough. The trials and tribulations of the Jews in Israel are about to treble exponentially.

According to an 82-page research paper called “Preparations for a Post-Israeli Middle East” – compiled by the American intelligence community and presented by Franklin Lamb – America’s leadership is urged to stop supporting Israel lest a permanent two-state solution for the Palestinian question is found forthwith. In short; America, via its foreign policy, can no longer afford to be seen as a supporter of an “Apartheid Israel”, as Desmond Tutu calls it so fondly.

Will America throw Israel to the wolves? Yes; it is a demographic inevitability. Israel’s staunchest supporters in America – white Christian males forming the base of the Republican Party – have a maximum of 10 years left to steer America’s foreign policy before they are demographically swamped by the very “individual-rights” holders and non-territorial groupings who jeered so loudly and proudly when the sentence “Jerusalem is the capital of Israel” was reintroduced into the Democratic platform a few years ago.

The end of the GOP is nigh. The vultures are circling. Just ask Paul Krugman, who unabashedly proclaimed that the Republican base is formed, “by and large [by] elderly white people arguing with empty chairs.”

Be that as it may; what can Israel try to do to maintain its unique Jewish identity once America, the (current) dominant global power, has withdrawn its support?

Well, it is quite elementary. By the nature of things, you have to exclude if you want to include, and vice versa. Male lions do it when they take over a territory – as do women when they choose a man to marry, to the exclusion of all others. This is just the way life works. And the Jews have learned this the hard way, throughout their tragic history.

Israel is now building a physical wall around its territory in order to protect its unique identity. The building of this wall – much to the chagrin of, amongst others, Pax Americana and the Muslim countries completely surrounding Israel – is, apart from the projection of its formidable military might, the only soft-power option left to maintain the physical integrity of its territory.

Will this work? No. Even Milosevic’s mighty hard-power army succumbed eventually, as did Apartheid South Africa’s soft-power pass system. It is truly game over for the state of Israel.

The identity/body politics of the secular-humanist West tops any and all soft and hard power projections aimed at maintaining a singularly exclusive identity within a clearly defined physical territory.

In Pax Americana, to paraphrase Foucault; physical territory is the prison of the individual.

Israel could become a new banned nation, like South Africa

by Jacques Attali

Once again, a conflict breaks out between Israel and one of its neighbors; this time, as in 2008, against Hamas, which still governs Gaza.

The downward spiral appears to be unstoppable: The killing of 3 Israeli teens. The abhorrent murder of a Palestinian teen. Missiles launched from Gaza by Hamas on Israeli cities and at Ben Gurion International Airport, without provoking a catastrophe for the time being, because of the extraordinary efficiency of the Israeli anti-missile shield. And the deadly Israeli bombing raids in Gaza to halt the rocket strikes.

The result of this downward spiral is clear: Thousands of victims from Palestine’s coastal strip, which will weaken Fatah, accused of « collaboration » with Israel. And other victims on the Israeli side, which will nourish a desire for vengeance.

In both countries, those in power increasingly weak.

In Palestine, a discrediting of all leaders; so much so that, if elections were to be held today, Hamas would win in the West Bank, and Fatah in Gaza, leaving the country, or its equivalent, totally ungovernable.

In Israel, a ramshackle coalition between the extremists of Mr. Lieberman and those of Mr. Netanyahu, losing ground. As President Peres prepares to step down from the presidency.

Not far, an already convalescent Egypt who fights against both the Muslim Brotherhood at home and Hamas in Gaza. Lebanon paralyzed by Hezbollah, that is to say: Iran. A martyred Syria, whose tyrant, and enemies alike, are supporting Hamas. Iraq in full meltdown in which two new States are emerging. One is a Kurdish state and peaceful, the other is a Sunni Islamic state, spearhead of a war of creeds between the two branches of Islam.

In this context, no great power is at ease.

The United States, who find themselves on the same side with Iran against Sunni terrorists, have timidly proposed the use of arbitration, that nobody wanted. France, who is torn between the traditionally pro-Palestinian position of the Quai d’Orsay and that of the French political class, a more balanced position, from both the Left and the Right. A Europe without leadership. China and Russia obsessed by the desire not to breed Islamic extremism for their own benefit.

If this situation continues for much longer, the Arabs, the Turks, the Persians, almost all Muslim, Sunni and Shia, will soon reconcile at the expense of Israel, in order to prevent the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from spreading discontent at home. And they will abandon the claim of creating a Palestinian State, realizing that Israeli colonization and messianism, make this option less viable with each passing day. They will advocate a one-state and binational solution.

At that point, it will be the programmed end of the State of Israel. Some will accept the single State, convinced that they will be able to dominate or expel the Arabs. Others will see the trap coming, that would transform Israel into a new South Africa, speedily banned by nations. Before its identity is lost, through demography and democracy.

Consequently, this leaves Israel very little time to dare to encourage the creation of a viable Palestinian State, next to it. And providing it with the means needed to ensure its development, without ever lowering its guard before the danger of terrorist attacks. Which is what the vast majority of Israelis desire.

This leaves very little time for the Arab countries, swimming in their dollar reserves, to provide Gaza with suitable ways to be a beautiful tourist destination in the Mediterranean.

There is even less time for other nations to create the conditions needed to solve this problem, which is causing all forms of violence to flourish.

In particular, France, (where Jewish and Arab communities could take sides and look for sources of division there) must speak loud and clear. And lead by example on the successful path to living together. – www.attali.com

Jacques Attali is a French economist, writer and senior civil servant.

Former adviser to President François Mitterrand and first president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, he founded the non-profit organization PlaNet Finance and was nominated President of the Commission for the Liberation of French Economic Growth. He is also Founder and President of A&A, a consultancy firm. He published more than fifty books, including essays and novels.

He belongs to the top 100 public intellectuals in the world, according to the Foreign Policy Magazine (May/June 2008).

Thousands protest in Paris against violence in Gaza

Thousands of people protested against Israel and in support of residents in the Gaza Strip, where a six-day conflict has left 168 Palestinians dead.

Some clashes erupted at the end of the march on Bastille Square, with people throwing projectiles onto a cordon of police who responded with tear gas.

Police announced six arrests had been made, after a small group tired to break into two synagogues in central Paris, a police source told AFP.

In the northern city of Lille, meanwhile, between 2,300 and 6,000 people protested peacefully, according to differing figures provided by the police and organisers.

The descent into violence in the Gaza Strip began on June 12 when three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped and later murdered, triggering a major military crackdown on Hamas in the West Bank and an escalation of rocket fire from Gaza.

The brutal revenge killing of a Palestinian teenager by Jews on July 2 added further fuel to the fire, turning into an all-out conflict on July 8 when Israel launched an air campaign against Gaza militants.

The Palestinian death toll from Israel’s punishing air campaign has hit 168.

So far, no Israelis have been killed.

“I came to say no to this massacre,” Amid Hamadouch, 30, told AFP at the Paris protest while it was still peaceful, with a sticker reading “Boycott Israel, Racist State” on his jacket.

“They are bombing innocent people. There are missiles being launched by Hamas, but the Israeli response is disproportionate. They are attacking the civilian population and not Hamas officials.”

The crowd, very young, shouted slogans such as: “We Are All Palestinians!” and “Only One Solution, End the Occupation!”.

Many protesters carried banners on which they had stuck photos taken from the Internet, reportedly showing Palestinian children killed or injured, houses razed to the ground or clouds of smoke emerging from bombed districts in Gaza.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, a majority of those killed in Gaza so far — 70 percent — have been civilians, of whom 30 percent were children.

HRW, apologists for murder

By Norman Finkelstein.

It takes considerable talent to describe Hamas’s firing of primitive “rockets” that to date have indirectly killed one person (she died of a heart attack) as a “war crime,” while describing Israel’s killing to date of 120 Palestinians, overwhelmingly civilians and innocent children, and its systematic targeting of civilian infrastructure, as mere “collective punishment.”

But it’s what one has come to expect from Human Rights Watch. In 2008 HRW issued a report entitled Flooding South Lebanon: Israel’s use of cluster munitions in Lebanon in July and August 2006. The report found that Israel dropped as many as 4.6 million cluster submunitions on south Lebanon during the 2006 war. It was – in HRW’s words – “the most extensive use of cluster munitions anywhere in the world since the 1991 Gulf war,” while relative to the size of the targeted area the density of the attack was historically unprecedented. Some 90 percent of these cluster munitions were dropped during the final three days “when Israel knew a settlement was imminent” (HRW), the U.N. ceasefire resolution having already been passed but not yet gone into effect. But, although finding that Israel committed “extensive violations” of the laws of war, HRW did not go beyond stating that Israel’s massive resort to cluster munitions was “in some locations possibly a war crime,” even as the evidence HRW itself assembled conclusively showed that Israel was targeting civilian population centers.

HRW now says that targeting the civilian homes of Hamas militants constitutes mere collective punishment. So, let’s see. Israel prides itself on having a citizen army. Virtually every civilian dwelling in Israel contains a family member who is either in the army or the reserves. If Hamas had precision missiles, issued an official warning that henceforth it would be targeting every civilian dwelling in Israel, and then proceeded to do just that, would HRW call it mere “collective punishment”?

Israel’s strikes wipe out families, but few Hamas militants

The Israeli military’s “pinpoint strikes” on houses in Gaza have killed whole families and children but few of the wanted men they are meant to target because they have long made themselves scarce, Palestinian residents say.

After five days of cross-border barrages between Gaza militants and Israel’s air force, at least 81 of the 121 Palestinians killed have been civilians, including 25 children, according to Palestinian medical officials.

While relatively few militants and even fewer of their commanders have been killed, according to Hamas sources and media reports, Israel appears more determined than in previous wars to bring the fight to their homes in the densely populated enclave hugging the Mediterranean coast.

Kin, neighbors and others who deny any ties to militants have been most often in the firing line of Israel’s assaults.

“I still can’t believe this happened, it’s like a bad dream,” said Shadi Hamad, standing in the demolished courtyard of a family home with tearful relatives.

“It was 11 at night and the family had just sat down in a circle for coffee in the front porch after breaking the Ramadan fast. The missile landed in the middle. Everyone was killed.”

The air strike was targeting Hafez Hamad, a local commander in the Islamic Jihad militant group, and killed him, as well as his parents, two brothers and niece.

“Where were their human rights, which Israel and its backers say they defend?” said Bassam Qassem, a neighbor. “Even if he (Hamad) was a resistance fighter, does that allow them to kill his whole family? This is murder.”

For their part, nervous Israeli civilians have for days had to heed warning sirens to seek shelter from Palestinian rockets, around 700 of which have lobbed from Gaza since Tuesday. They have so far caused no Israeli fatalities, but some injuries and damage.

Israel disavows any responsibility for the Gaza deaths, saying Hamas stows its people and weapons among civilians and hopes to score a cheap sympathy boost from their deaths.

“We are using all our attacking capabilities, not without brains, reason – not without taking into consideration that there are also civilians in Gaza. We remember that there are civilians. Hamas has turned them into hostages,” Israeli military chief Lieutenant-General Benny Gantz said on Friday.

“We continue to attack as best we can, rockets, command centers, tunnels, munitions and defense infrastructure and Gaza is sinking into a tragedy,” Gantz said.

Early on Saturday two disabled women were killed and four other people seriously wounded when an Israeli tank shell struck a rehabilitation center in the eastern part of Gaza City, Palestinian medics said. An Israeli military spokeswoman said she was checking for details on why the center was targeted.

Residents also said a mosque in the central Gaza Strip was bombed to rubble. The military said it had housed a weapons cache.

Israel says it has attacked more than a thousand targets in the coastal territory since the recent fighting began. – The Jewish Daily, Forward

Thousands flee northern Gaza as Israel launches ground offensive

Thousands of residents fled northern Gaza on Sunday at the urging of the Israeli military as its ground troops briefly crossed the border on a mission to destroy a launching site.

The tumult came as the death toll from Israel’s six-day Operation Protective Edge offensive rose to more than 160, with more than 1,000 injured, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.

“Civilians are requested to evacuate their residences immediately for their own safety,” the Israeli leaflets dropped by air warned. They listed specific areas that would “prove to be most dangerous.”

Israeli airstrikes hit more than 200 homes and buildings across Gaza on Sunday. Despite calls from the United Nations and world leaders, there were no signs the two sides will agree to a cease-fire soon.

“We don’t know when the operation will end,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a Cabinet meeting Sunday. “It might take a long time.”

Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, spokesman for the Israeli Defense Forces, said the military has hit 1,300 targets since the offensive began July 7. He said Gaza militants have launched 904 rockets at Israel. Of these, 160 were intercepted by Israel’s “Iron Dome” anti-rocket system, Lerner said.

Nasr Kafarna, 43, a farmer in northern Gaza who lives near the border, says he has been on edge for the past week. After Israeli troops crossed into Gaza early Sunday, he fears for the worst.

“I worry this is all-out war now,” he said. “We haven’t recovered from the last one – we aren’t ready for another one.”

The death toll in the first week of this offensive has topped the estimated 133 killed in the last outbreak of hostilities in 2012. That Israeli operation, also to stop rockets being lobbed over the border, lasted eight days. The current conflict follows the murders of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank and the killing of a Palestinian teenager last month in what is being called a revenge death.

Residents say tensions are high in the densely populated, 140-square-mile strip of land squeezed between Israel and the Mediterranean Sea.

“Every time after you hear the sound of a missile hitting sometime, you look up the names of the dead with extreme fear, not knowing whose name you are going to find,” said Sabab Farahat, 22, of Gaza City. “Our hearts ache even for the names of the people we do not know.”

“I want to go back to my normal life, go to my university and the market and meet my friends,” Farahat added. “I really miss normal life.”

On Saturday, Israeli airstrikes hit two mosques – Israel’s government said Hamas hides arms in those places of worship.

Iyad Mortaga, 34, of Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, says she is just in a state of disbelief over what is happening and the deaths from the operation.

“I really don’t know how all this came to pass,” she said, adding she had attended afternoon prayer at the Dar Al Salam Mosque before it was hit.

“My neighbor – we learned of his death two hours after the bombing,” she said. “Now I can’t go to pray in the mosque and I am afraid to go to any mosques.”

In Israel, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Yigal Palmor told USA TODAY, “Israel isn’t interested in a temporary cease-fire. … We’re not looking for a Band-Aid solution but a long-term plan that will neutralize and take off the table completely all possible threats of rocket fire from Gaza.”

Gershon Baskin, the Israeli who negotiated the 2011 prisoner swap for Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier Hamas kidnapped in 2006, said he maintains open channels with many in the Palestinian leadership and both sides remain far apart. He said Israel’s military is concerned about Hamas’ arsenal of anti-tank rockets.

“The Hamas have tunnels and bunkers all throughout the north and center of Gaza, and they are planning to emerge out of nowhere and hit the Israelis with the hopes of being able to grab some soldiers and hold them hostage,” Baskin said.

He said a senior official in the Palestinian Authority involved in attempts to get Hamas to agree to a cease-fire told him that Hamas won’t stop until after Israel launches a ground invasion. “They want to hurt Israel badly, something they have so far failed to do” with their rockets,” Baskin said. – USA Today

Gaza’s torment, Israel’s crimes

By Noam Chomsky

At 3am Gaza time, July 9, in the midst of Israel’s latest exercise in savagery, I received a phone call from a young Palestinian journalist in Gaza. In the background, I could hear his infant child wailing, amidst the sounds of explosions and jet planes, targeting any civilian who moves, and homes as well. He just saw a friend of his in a car clearly marked “press” blown away. And he heard shrieks next door after an explosion but can’t go outside or he’ll be a likely target. This is a quiet neighborhood, no military targets – except Palestinians who are fair game for Israel’s high tech US-supplied military machine. He said that 70% of the ambulances have been destroyed, and that by then over 70 had been killed, and of the 300 or so wounded, about 2/3 women and children. Few Hamas activists have been hit – or rocket launching sites. Just the usual victims.

It is important to understand what life is like in Gaza when Israel’s behavior is “restrained,” in between the regular manufactured crises like this one. A good sense is given in a report to UNRWA by Mads Gilbert, the courageous and expert Norwegian physician who has worked extensively in Gaza, also throughout the vicious and murderous Cast Lead operation. In every respect, the situation is disastrous. Just keeping to children, Gilbert reports: “Palestinian children in Gaza are suffering immensely. A large proportion are affected by the man-made malnourishment regime caused by the Israeli imposed blockage. Prevalence of anaemia in children <2yrs in Gaza is at 72.8%, while prevalence of wasting, stunting, underweight have been documented at 34.3%, 31.4%, 31.45% respectively.” And it gets worse as the report proceeds.

When Israel is on “good behavior,” more than two Palestinian children are killed every week, a pattern that goes back over 14 years. The underlying cause is the criminal occupation and the programs to reduce Palestinian life to bare survival in Gaza, while Palestinians are restricted to unviable cantons in the West Bank and Israel takes over what it wants, all in gross violation of international law and explicit Security Council resolutions, not to speak of minimal decency. And it will continue as long as it is supported by Washington and tolerated by Europe – to our everlasting shame.

Jan Nederveen Pieterse in conversation with Noam Chomsky, linguist, philosopher and political commentator. Chomsky is Emeritus professor of linguistics at MIT. Jan Nederveen Pieterse is professor of Global Studies and Sociology at University of California, Santa Barbara.

Assassination by drone: US relies on laws from countries without a constitution

The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says:

No person shall … be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law ….

So how did the legal memorandum “justifying” assassination of U.S. citizens by drone try to sidestep the Fifth Amendment?

It relied on reasoning from two countries that don’t have any constitution.

The New York Times reports:

One might have expected a thoughtful memo that carefully weighed the pros and cons and discussed how such a strike accords with international and Constitutional law.

Instead, the memo turns out to be a slapdash pastiche of legal theories — some based on obscure interpretations of British and Israeli law — that was clearly tailored to the desired result. Perhaps the administration held out so long to avoid exposing the thin foundation on which it based such a momentous decision.

Neither England nor Israel have a constitution.

Indeed, as the BBC notes, they are in a very small group of three:

In all but a handful of democracies in the world, the nation’s constitution can be found in a single document. The exceptions are Israel, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

Nothing in the memo says that it only applies to U.S. citizens living abroad. Indeed, the government has claimed the right to assassinate or indefinitely detain any American citizen without any due process.

Actually, the U.S. has never said that it won’t assassinate Americans living on U.S. soil.

Sadly, even though Americans have a constitution, we have lost virtually all of the rights contained in that document.

Source: George Washington’s blog