Israeli High Court rules against Judge Advocate General’s “extremely unreasonable” decision

B’Tselem, The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, Yesh Din

1 July 2009

The Israeli High Court ruled today in favor of changing the indictments filed against the soldier and commander who were involved in the shooting of a handcuffed detainee in Ni’lin, so as to reflect the gravity of the offenses. The human rights organizations who had filed the petition to change the indictments expressed satisfaction with the decision, saying that it conveys a crucial message that protection of human rights must be a primary consideration for law-enforcement agencies. The organizations said they hope that in the future, High Court intervention will not be necessary for military law-enforcement agencies to convey to soldiers and commanders an unequivocal message to safeguard human life and dignity.

However, the organizations voiced concern over the fact that even though the abuse of the handcuffed detainee was filmed and caused a public outcry, the High Court’s intervention was necessary for the army to take proper action against the offenders. They said that the many reports regarding violence by security forces in the Occupied Territories, accompanied by feeble responses of the military law-enforcement agencies, raise doubt as to the ability and commitment of the army’s command level to comply with essential moral and legal norms.

Background

In August 2008, Ashraf Abu Rahma petitioned the Israeli High Court of Justice – with the assistance of Israeli human rights organizations B’Tselem, ACRI, PCATI and Yesh Din – after having been shot by a soldier at close range while blindfolded. The petitioners demanded that the indictments filed against the soldier who fired the shot, Staff Sergeant L., and the platoon commander, lieutenant Col. Omri Borberg, be changed so as to reflect the severity of the offenses. Using a weapon to intimidate, and shooting a handcuffed detainee may amount to abuse of detainee under aggrevated circumstances, an offense that carries a penalty of seven years in prison.

Ashraf Abu Rahma is happy with the decision, although he feels it is too late, one year after the shooting. Because of the violence of Israeli soldiers in the service of the occupation, he says, there are hundreds of other similar cases to his own that go undocumented and continue to occur with impunity. On the 17th of April, 2009, his brother Bassem was shot with a tear gas canister by an Israeli soldier at a peaceful demonstration against the wall in Bil’in.

In the petition, attorneys Limor Yehuda and Dan Yakir from ACRI stated that the decision of the Military Prosecutor to charge the soldier and commander with “unbecoming conduct”, an offense which does not appear on criminal records, is highly unreasonable and conveys an alarming message of disrespect for human lives, laying the foundation for future incidents of abuse.

Israel to deport peace activists sailing to Gaza

Efrat Weiss | YNet News

1 July 2009

Israel is planning to deport within the next few days the 21 peace activists who arrived on a boat from Cyprus with the intention of entering the Gaza Strip. An Israeli Navy unit boarded their boat and escorted it to Ashdod port. Immigration police will transport the detained activists to Ben Gurion Airport, and from there they will be deported out of the country.

Among the peace activists are two Israeli-American citizens, and 19 others, including five from Ireland, three from Britain, five from Bahrain, three Americans, and Danish, Jordan, and Yemenite citizens.

Eight immigration police arrived at Ashdod police and performed a search of the activists’ belongings. The detainees will then be transferred to the Immigration Administration in Holon. The police will take their fingerprints, and then send them to Ben Gurion Airport, where each one will face a hearing before the Interior Ministry before being deported.

Hana Araf, of Meilia village in the Galilee, uncle of Houida Araf, one of the Israeli-American citizens on the Gaza-bound boat said, “We haven’t managed to get a hold of her, and we haven’t received any information. We are worried. They can’t deport her, and we will fight for this to the very end.

“She has an Israeli passport. She is a citizen of the state, and Israel has no right to detain her. What for, exactly? For trying to help people who have no food? In the past there were a few regimes that did this, the apartheid in South Africa, for instance. Is this the regime Israel wants to be associated with?”

According to him, “She didn’t do anything against the law. She wants to lawfully help people in trouble, and they are part of her people – if the people here in Israel want it or not. I don’t know how in 60 years, people haven’t internalized the fact that the Arabs living here are Palestinians. We are the same nation. The fact that there was separation and occupation doesn’t make us any less brothers.”

In Larnaca, Cyprus, where the boat departed from, the Gerta Berlin, founder of Movement for the Freedom of Gaza, is being inundated with phone calls showing their support following the detainment of the peace activists.

“They simply kidnapped the passengers. I call the Israeli occupation forces to release our people immediately. It’s funny – what are they going to do? Deport us? The last place we wanted to reach was Israel,” she said.

Berlin still has not thrown in the towel. “It isn’t over till the fat lady sings. They took our boat, so we’ll get a freighter. Israel has no right to keep 1.5 million residents under siege, to occupy Gaza, and to turn it into one big refugee camp.

“The Israeli government does not understand that time is on our side. In the meantime, the administration is losing public support. It would be much smarter on their part if they would simply turn the other cheek and let us through. The detainment of the boat only works in our favor in the long run,” she explained.

Ha’aretz: ‘Court: IDF must toughen charges for shooting of bound Palestinian’

Tomer Zarchin | Ha’aretz

1 July 2009

The High Court ordered the Military Advocate General on Wednesday to file harsher charges against an Israel Defense Forces officer who ordered a soldier to shoot a rubber-coated metal bullet at a bound Palestinian.

Lt. Col. Omri Burberg, the officer, and Staff Sgt. L., the soldier, were formally charged with “improper conduct” over the incident, which took place in the West Bank village of Na’alin last September.

Justices Ayala Procaccia, Amnon Rubinstein and Hanan Meltzer abstained from ruling Wednesday on what charges would be appropriate for the shooting.

They unanimously accepted a petition submitted by Ashraf Abu Rahmeh, 27, the victim, and four human rights organizations against the Military Advocate General, Avihai Mandelblit.

The petitioners had demanded that the charges against Burberg and the soldier be changed in order to reflect the “gravity of the acts.”

In response, the justices wrote: “The moral gap between the nature of the act described in the indictment and the manner of evaluation in the indictment – as the offense of ‘improper conduct’ – is so deep that it cannot stand.”

“The gravity of the incident from a normative-moral perspective is exaggerated and exceptional,” wrote Justice Procaccia in her ruling. “Staging such scare tactics toward a bound, handcuffed and blindfolded man indicates a deep deviation from the moral norms that all IDF soldiers, and especially senior commanders, are obligated to uphold.”

In his ruling, Justice Rubinstein quoted Israel’s first Prime Minister Davd Ben-Gurion, who said that the IDF’s strength stems from its morality. Rubinstein even went so far as to say that Burberg’s actions may qualify as a desecration of God’s name.

The incident came to light after the Israeli human rights group, B’Tselem, released a video taken of the shooting by a Palestinian youth

In the video, Burberg is seen holding Abu Rahmeh, while a soldier under his command shoots him at close range in the foot. The IDF’s criminal investigation division subsequently launched a probe into the incident.

Burberg’s attorneys on Wednesday said that at no point during the incident did he command the soldier to or imagine he would shoot the Palestinian, and that this is well-documented in the evidence.

The attorneys added that the High Court’s decision does not change the facts in the case and said they are convinced their client will be acquitted in a military court.

As part of a deal reached between the officer and the GOC Northern Command, Maj. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, Burberg announced his willingness to leave the army. Following this announcement, Mandelblit relayed that he had decided upon a lighter indictment for Burberg and his subordinate, that of “improper conduct,” one which did not give the pair a criminal record.

Finding fish, but Israelis too

Eva Bartlett | Inter Press Service

1 July 2009

At 6am on Jun. 16, Sadallah and his brother Abdel Hadi Sadallah, in their early twenties, went roughly 400 metres out to sea off the coast of Sudaniya in Gaza’s northwest. “We wanted to bring in nets we had left out the night before,” says Sadallah.

Their small fishing boat, known as a hassaka, was in Palestinian fishing waters when three Israeli navy boats approached the brothers.

“After they opened fire on us, we paddled about three kilometres west where a larger Israeli gunboat was waiting. When we were about 30 metres from the gunboat, Israeli soldiers ordered us to take off our clothes, jump into the water, and swim towards them.”

The gunboat, Sadallah said, moved half a kilometre away after the two fishermen had jumped into the water. “We swam for about 15 minutes to reach it,” he said. “Then they took us aboard and handcuffed and blindfolded us.” In illegal detention later in Israel’s Ashdod port, the two were interrogated, but not charged. They were released at the Erez crossing more than 14 hours after their abduction.

The Sadallahs’ hassaka remains in Ashdod, along with what Palestinian fishermen attest are an increasing number of their fishing vessels.

The hassaka will cost 4,000 shekels (about 1,000 dollars) to replace, double the normal price because of the siege on Gaza. The missing nets cost more: 6,000 shekels. “And fishing is our only source of income,” the now jobless Sadallah says.

Jihad Sultan, also from Sudaniya, spoke of his abduction by the Israeli navy a month earlier, on May 27.

“It’s the third time I was abducted,” he said. “The Israelis accused me of crossing into the ‘no-go zone’, but I didn’t.” In Ashdod, Sultan said he saw “a building filled with nets which I’m sure are stolen Palestinian nets.”

Zaki Taroush and his 17-year-old son Zayed were fishing 600 metres off the coast and 200 metres south of the closed zone the same day Sultan was abducted. They were likewise forced under the live fire of Israeli soldiers to paddle their hassaka west to a waiting Israeli gunboat where they underwent the same, standard, procedure: strip, swim, abduction, handcuffing and blindfolding.

In detention, they were accused of being in off-limits waters, in what is known as the ‘K’ zone. Tarroush had been abducted along with seven other fishermen just three months earlier, on Mar. 13, under similar circumstances, also losing his net when Israeli soldiers cut the ropes. Following that abduction, the Israelis kept his hassaka, returning it nearly two months later, the 150 shekels transport of which he had to pay.

Under the Oslo interim agreement, Palestinian fishermen were accorded a 20 nautical mile fishing limit, one which Israel has since repeatedly, unilaterally, downsized to as little as three miles.

In Sudaniya, Jihad Sultan explains his work on a beached, broken hassaka. “This was taken by the Israelis. When it was returned to us, it had been badly damaged. I’m certain it was dropped on cement,” he said, pointing to long splits in the wood. “It needs to be entirely rebuilt.”

One of the problems now, Sultan explained, is the lack of materials for repairing the boat. “It will cost nearly 3,500 just to repair the boat.” Fishing nets also are comprised of several unavailable or highly expensive parts.

“The steel bits on the netting cost 15 shekels a kilo, versus six shekels before the siege. But they are very hard to find now. Rope used to cost 20 shekels per 100 metres, but now it’s 50 shekels and completely unavailable. Sometimes it is brought through the tunnels, but the quality is poor. Even the buoys which hold the nets up are triple the price, at two shekels apiece, and can’t be found in Gaza.”

With so many parts unavailable in Gaza, Sultan said that to make a ‘new’ net fishermen sew together bits from old nets. To worsen matters, “when the Israeli soldiers don’t find any fishermen to arrest, they often cut or take our nets.”

On the beach near Sultan’s broken hassaka, Awad Assaida’s bullet-latticed hassaka sits unused, waiting for repairs. “I was in the boat when the Israelis attacked,” said Salim Naiman. “They shot at me for around 30 minutes, from all around me.” Naiman said that when the Israelis finally left, a Palestinian fishing launch nearby towed the boat to shore. Over 50 bullet holes punctured the sides, top and interior of the hassaka. The attacks are by no means limited to the northern areas, but occur all along Gaza’s coast. Nor are the attacks limited to recent times – they go at least a decade back. The Israeli navy’s policy of assault and intimidation has killed at least six fishermen in the last four years, including Hani Najjar, shot in the head by Israeli soldiers in October 2006 while fishing roughly 2.5 miles off the coast of Deir Al-Balah.

Since Jan. 18 this year when the assault on Gaza ended, five fishermen are known to have been wounded at sea, five more injured on the shore, more than 40 abducted, at least 17 boats taken, and dozens more damaged. Of the boats that have been returned, all have suffered damage or theft of equipment while in custody of the Israeli authorities.

Sultan believes one reason for the severe attacks on Palestinian fishermen is political. “The water near the ‘K’ area is rich in fish. The Israelis know this and don’t want Palestinian fishermen benefiting from it. It’s part of the siege.”