Israel Defense Forces sources said Saturday a tear gas canister that killed a Palestinian demonstrator Friday at a protest against the West Bank separation fence was likely fired in violation of orders. Bassem Abu Rahmeh, 31, was killed during a protest in the West Bank village of Bil’in, a flash point for confrontations between soldiers and anti-fence protesters.
The Bil’in shooting occurred during a protest during which around 100 demonstrators hurled stones at soldiers and tried to destroy the fence, army sources said. Abu Rahmeh sustained severe chest injuries and was transferred to a Ramallah hospital, where he died of his injuries.
IDF officials who investigated the incident found the Armored Corps soldier who fired the canister apparently aimed directly at Abu Rahmeh from a distance of a mere few dozen meters. The IDF said Saturday that troops opened fire to disperse a violent, three-hour protest that was taking place in a closed military zone.
An Israeli foreign ministry spokesperson has confirmed to Al Jazeera that it will not co-operate with a United Nations investigation into alleged war crimes during the 22-day assault on the Gaza Strip.
Up to 1,300 Palestinians, mostly women and children, were killed before Israel ended the offensive in January.
Thirteen Israelis, 10 of them soldiers, were killed during the same period.
The UN Human Rights Council has appointed Richard Goldstone, a South African judge and former UN war crimes prosecutor, to examine claims of human rights violations by both Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters during the conflict.
Israel has previously complained that the UN body is biased against it.
“The investigation has no moral ground since it decided even before it started who is guilty and of what,” Yigal Palmor, a foreign ministry spokesman, said earlier this month.
Imprecise artillery
Human rights groups have called for the UN investigation to look into allegations that the Israeli fired imprecise artillery and controversial white phosphorus shells in built-up neighbourhoods.
It is also expected to examine the indiscriminate firing of rocket into southern Israel by Palestinian fighters, Israel’s stated reason for launching the offensive last December.
Sporadic rocket fire into Israel has continued since the war, and on Thursday Israel bombed a house in a Gaza refugee camp. No casualties were reported.
Goldstone’s four-member team is expected to travel to the region in a few weeks’ time and will issue a report to the council in July.
But Israel’s refusal to work with the investigators raises questions about whether an adequate investigation can be completed.
However, Israel said that Goldstone, who is Jewish and has close ties to Israel, is not the problem.
“[It’s] not about Justice Goldstone,” Aharon Leshno Yaar, the Israeli ambassador to UN organisations in Geneva, said on Tuesday.
“It’s clear to everybody who follows this council and the way that it treats Israel that justice cannot be the outcome of this mission.”
‘Imaprtiality’
In New York, a leading human rights group urged both sides to co-operate.
Human Rights Watch, noted that it has criticised the UN rights council in the past “for its exclusive focus on Israeli rights violations”.
However, Goldstone has the “experience and proven commitment to ensure that this inquiry will demonstrate the highest standards of impartiality,” the group wrote in a letter to Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, and 27 European foreign ministers.
Hamas has already welcomed the investigation.
The investigators “will find full co-operation of the Palestinian government and Palestinian people because the crimes of the occupation are clear and no one can underestimate them”, Yousef Rizka, an adviser to Ismail Haniya, the de facto prime minister in Gaza, said.
Israel is co-operating with a separate investigation into several attacks on UN facilities during the conflict, including one which destroyed a warehouse belonging to the UN Relief and Works Agency, which provides food aid for the Gazans.
Demolition of the Dwiyat family’s house, East Jerusalem. Photo: Kareem Jubran, B'Tselem, 7 April 2009.
On 7 April, security forces demolished the apartment, in Zur Baher, East Jerusalem, of the family of Husam Dwiyat, who carried out a bulldozer attack in the center of Jerusalem in July of last year. The demolition took place after the High Court of Justice denied, on 18 March, the family’s petition opposing the action.
As in previous cases of this kind, the justices (Levy, Grunis, and Na’or) accepted the state’s argument that demolition of the family home will deter others from carrying out similar acts. The justices approved the demolition, even though the state never contended that Dwiyat’s family assisted him or knew of his plans.
From 1967 to 2005, Israel maintained a policy to demolish or seal houses in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as a means to punish the families of Palestinians who had harmed Israelis. The policy was based on the claim that, out of concern for their families, Palestinians would be deterred from carrying out attacks. In implementing this policy, from October 2001 to the end of January 2005, Israel demolished 664 houses, leaving 4,182 persons homeless.
This practice is forbidden under international humanitarian law. The declared objective is to harm innocent persons – relatives of suspects – whom nobody contends were involved in any offense. As such, it constitutes collective punishment, which violates the principle that a person is not to be punished for the acts of another.
In February 2005, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and Chief of Staff Moshe Ya’alon accepted the recommendations of a team headed by Maj. Gen. Udi Shani, and decided that houses would no longer be demolished as punishment. The change in policy had a few causes, among them the determination that it is was impossible to state without reservation that house demolitions were effective in preventing terrorist attacks. In addition, evidence was presented to the Shani team indicating that house demolitions as punishment created immense hatred, which increased motivation to carry out terrorist attacks. In addition, it was determined by the committee that house demolitions adversely affected Israel’s public image around the world, and its legality under international law was unclear.
The judge advocate general, Brig. Gen. Avichai Mandelblit, explained at a meeting of the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee of the Knesset that the decision to cease house demolitions as punishment did not relate only to periods of calm, and that it would remain in effect also if terrorist attacks resumed. The JAG emphasized that the decision was sweeping, and that the subject would be reconsidered only in the event of a drastic change in circumstances.
Despite this, on 19 January 2009, without giving a convincing explanation, Israel renewed its policy and sealed two of four floors in the house of the family of the perpetrator of the attack at the Mercaz Harav yeshiva in Jerusalem, ‘Alaa Abu Dahim, in which his parents and one of his brothers lived. In that case as well, the High Court approved the state’s action.
The transportation branch of the French multinational corporation Veolia loses a contract worth 750 million euros in Bordeaux.
The Greater Bordeaux local government give a contract for the management of the biggest urban network in France to Keolis, a subsidiary of SNCF over Veolia. Veolia has been involved in the construction of a tramway in Jerusalem, designed to link West Jerusalem with illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. Veolia has now lost contracts that are worth more than $7.5 Billion in Stockholm, West Midlands (UK) and Bordeaux.
The transportation branch of the French multinational corporation Veolia just lost a contract worth 750 millions euros in Bordeaux.
This contract was about the management of the biggest urban network in France. It went to Keolis, a subsidiary of SNCF.
The Greater Bordeaux local government said that its decision was based on commercial factors, but the implication of Veolia in a controversial tramway project in Jerusalem (the “Jerusalem light railway”) provoked intense debates everywhere.
Indeed French corporations Veolia and Alstom have been called into question for several years because of their participation in a project to build a tramway in Jerusalem, designed to link West Jerusalem (Israel) with illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. This contract has caused great controversy on the political ethics of Veolia.
The General Manager for France of Veolia Transport, Francis Grass, said that Veolia has “very important questions […], the feeling that things are not done fairly” … In fact, Veolia’s involvement in the situation of apartheid has already lead to the loss of several contracts, and this is just the beginning.
Soldiers fire on youth during a Friday demonstration. Villagers have refused to accept the new path of the Wall, resulting in weekly demonstrations and increasing army repression.
Last night youth from the village of Jayyous broke through the Wall in the village. A small group then proceeded to the site where the new path is being constructed, destroying and setting fire to building materials. Occupation forces responded by raiding the village, where they remained into the early hours of the morning.
At around six in the evening, a small group of youth from the village broke through a section of fencing near the south gate. Through the hole, they snuck across the village’s isolated lands to the site where the new path of the Wall is being constructed. There, they destroyed and burned materials before escaping back into the village.
Soldiers in the area responded by mounting a raid on the village. A total of 15 jeeps, 9 from the regular army and 6 from the Border Police, drove into the village. Youth threw stones at the invading jeeps, and soldiers fired back. Jayyous was placed under curfew from seven until midnight, and soldiers remained in the village until two in the morning, firing sound bombs and using vehicle loudspeakers to prevent people from sleeping.
