Tag: United Nations - Page 10 - International Solidarity Movement

UN accuses Israel of Gaza ‘negligence or recklessness’

Rory McCarthy & Ed Pilkington | The Guardian

A fire at the UN building in Gaza City after Israeli air strikes. Photograph: Mahmud Hams/AFP/Getty

5 May 2009

A United Nations inquiry today accused the Israeli military of “negligence or recklessness” in its conduct of the January war in Gaza and said the organisation should press claims for reparations for deaths and damage.

The first investigation into the three-week war by anyone other than human rights researchers and journalists held the Israeli government responsible in seven separate cases in which UN property was damaged and UN staff and other civilians were hurt or killed.

However, the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, rejected the report’s call for a full and impartial investigation into the war, and refused to publish the complete 184-page report. Only Ban’s own summary of the report (pdf) has been released.

Israel rejected the inquiry’s findings, even before the summary was released, as “tendentious” and “patently biased”.

The board of inquiry, led by Ian Martin, a Briton who is a former head of Amnesty International and a former UN special envoy to East Timor and Nepal, had limited scope, looking only at cases of death, injury or damage involving UN property and staff. But its conclusions amount to a major challenge to Israel.

It found the Israeli military’s actions “involved varying degrees of negligence or recklessness”, and that the military took “inadequate” precautions towards UN premises. It said the deaths of civilians should be investigated under the rules of international humanitarian law.

The UN should take action “to seek accountability and pursue claims to secure reparation or reimbursement” for UN expenses and payments over deaths or injury to UN staff and damage to UN property where the responsibility lay with Israel, Hamas or any other party, the report added. In total, more than $11m worth of damage was caused to UN premises.

The inquiry looked in detail at nine incidents, in which several Palestinians died. It found the Israeli military responsible in seven cases where it had “breached the inviolability” of the UN. In one other case, Palestinian militants, probably from Hamas, were held responsible; in a final case, responsibility was unclear.

The report summary will now go to the UN security council. In a later press conference , Ban confirmed that he would be seeking no further official inquiry into the Gaza events. But he did say he would be looking for reparations from Israel on a “case-by-case” basis.

The secretary general was asked whether his decision not to publish the full report amounted to a watering down of the inquiry’s findings. He categorically denied the suggestion: the inquiry was independent, and he was powerless to edit its conclusions.

Israel’s foreign ministry said the Israeli military had already investigated its own conduct during the war and “proved beyond doubt” that it had not fired intentionally at UN buildings. It dismissed the UN inquiry.

“The state of Israel rejects the criticism in the committee’s summary report and determines that in both spirit and language the report is tendentious, patently biased and ignores the facts presented to the committee,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

It said the inquiry had “preferred the claims of Hamas, a murderous terror organisation, and by doing so has misled the world”.

The most serious incident investigated took place on 6 January, near a UN boys’ preparatory school in Jabaliya that was being used as a shelter for hundreds of Palestinians who had fled their homes to escape the fighting. The Israeli military had fired several 120mm mortar rounds in the “immediate vicinity” of the school, killing between 30 and 40 Palestinians, the inquiry found.

Although Israel at the time said Hamas had fired mortars from within the school, the inquiry found this as not true: there had been no firing from within the compound and there were no explosives in the school.

It held Israel responsible for the attack and said the deaths of civilians should be “assessed in accordance with … international humanitarian law.” It also called for a formal acknowledgement from Israel that its allegations about Palestinian militants being present in the school were untrue.

The other incidents investigated were:

29 December The headquarters of the UN political mission in Gaza was damaged when Israeli air strikes hit the presidential compound next door. Staff were on site, but were protected in a bunker and not injured. The inquiry held the Israeli government responsible for the damage.

5 January An Israeli air strike hit the UN Asma elementary school in Gaza City, where hundreds more Palestinians were sheltering. The missile killed three young men who had been walking to the bathroom in the school compound. The inquiry found no weapons or ammunition were being stored in the school, and that the men had been going to the toilet and not taking part in military activity. The attack was “an egregious breach of the inviolability of the United Nations premises”, the inquiry said, again holding Israel responsible for the deaths and damage.

6 January An Israeli air strike damaged the UN Bureij health centre, injuring nine people. The inquiry said the air strike had targeted and destroyed an apartment opposite the centre. It held Israel responsible for the damage to the health centre, and noted that the UN had been given no advance warning of the attack.

8 January Israeli soldiers fired at a UN convoy, damaging one of the vehicles in Ezbet Abed Rabou. The marked convoy, flying a UN flag, had been cleared by the Israeli military to travel out to pick up the dead body of a UN staff member.

15 January The UN’s main headquarters in Gaza was badly damaged when it was hit by several Israeli artillery shells, including some containing white phosphorus. The shelling continued despite warnings from the UN to the Israeli military, and fires caused serious damage to the UN warehouse. Three people were injured. The inquiry held Israel responsible and said the Israeli military had a “particularly high degree of responsibility” to ensure the safety of the UN headquarters.

17 January Israeli 155mm artillery loaded with white phosphorus exploded early in the morning above the UN Beit Lahiya elementary school, where nearly 2,000 Palestinians were sheltering from the fighting. Two children, aged five and seven, were killed inside a classroom and their mother and cousin were seriously injured by shards of shell casings. Eleven others were also hurt. The inquiry held Israel responsible for the deaths, injuries and damage.

In one other case, damage worth around $29,000 was caused to a World Food Programme warehouse by a Palestinian militant group, probably Hamas. In the last case, a UN guard outside the gate of a UN girls’ preparatory school in Khan Younis was killed on 29 December by shrapnel. The inquiry was unable to determine who was responsible.

End Palestinian demolitions in Jerusalem, UN tells Israel

Rory McCarthy | The Guardian

1 May 2009

The United Nations has called on Israel to end its programme of demolishing homes in east Jerusalem and tackle a mounting housing crisis for Palestinians in the city.

Dozens of Palestinian homes in east Jerusalem are demolished each year because they do not have planning permits. Critics say the demolitions are part of an effort to extend Israeli control as Jewish settlements continue to expand. The 21-page report from the UN office for the co-ordination of humanitarian affairs is the latest round in an intensifying campaign on the issue.

Although Israel’s mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, has defended the planning policy as even-handed, the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, in March described demolitions as “unhelpful”. An internal report for EU diplomats, released earlier and obtained by the Guardian, described them as illegal under international law and said they “fuel bitterness and extremism”. Israel occupied east Jerusalem in the 1967 war and later unilaterally annexed it, a move not recognised by the international community.

The UN said that of the 70.5 sq km of east Jerusalem and the West Bank annexed by Israel, only 13% was zoned for Palestinian construction and this was mostly already built up. At the same time 35% had been expropriated for Israeli settlements, even though all settlements on occupied land are illegal under international law.

As a result Palestinians in east Jerusalem had found it increasingly difficult to obtain planning permits and many had built without them, risking fines and eventual demolition, the UN said. As many as 28% of all Palestinian homes in east Jerusalem were built in violation of Israeli planning rules.

“Throughout its occupation, Israel has significantly restricted Palestinian development in east Jerusalem,” the UN report said. It said 673 Palestinian structures had been demolished in the east between 2000 and 2008. Last year alone 90 structures were demolished, leaving 400 Palestinians displaced, the highest number of demolitions for four years. Similar demolitions are carried out regularly by the Israeli military across the West Bank.

The UN said it was particularly concerned about areas facing mass demolition, including Bustan in Silwan, just south of the old city, where the threatened destruction of 90 houses would lead to the displacement of 1,000 Palestinians.

Families who lose their homes are faced with the choice of moving into crowded apartments with relatives or renting new homes. They face “significant hardships”, including having their property destroyed and struggling with debts from fines and legal fees, the UN said.

A 2007 survey, quoted in the UN report, found that more than half of the displaced families took at least two years to find a new permanent home and often moved several times in the process. Children missed out on school and suffered emotional and behavioural problems for months, with poor academic records over the longer term.

The authorities in Jerusalem challenged the UN report and denied “the accusations and numbers throughout”. Israel’s Jerusalem municipality accepted there was a “planning crisis” but said it was “not just in eastern Jerusalem but throughout all of Jerusalem that affects Jews, Christians and Muslims alike”. It said the mayor would present a new plan for the city.

“Recent events indicate that the Jerusalem municipality will maintain, and possibly accelerate, its policy on house demolition,” the UN report said. “Israel should immediately freeze all pending demolition orders and undertake planning that will address the Palestinian housing crisis in east Jerusalem.”

Last week, Barkat, who won election five months ago, rejected international criticism of demolitions and planning policy as “misinformation” and “Palestinian spin. There is no politics. It’s just maintaining law and order in the city,” he said. “The world is basing its evidence on the wrong facts.The world has to learn and I am sure people will change their minds.”

Barkat said he wanted to improve the life of all the city’s residents, Jewish and Arab, but that he was committed to maintaining a Jewish majority. Jews make up around two-thirds of the city’s population.

The UN said nearly a third of east Jerusalem remained unplanned, meaning there could be no construction. Even in planned areas there were problems, including the number of small privately held plots, poor infrastructure and few resources.

Although the number of permit applications more than doubled between 2003 and 2007, the number of permits grants remained relatively flat, the UN said. There was a gap between housing needs and permitted construction of 1,100 housing units a year. “Due to the lack of proper urban planning, the under-investment in public infrastructure and the inequitable allocation of budgetary resources, east Jerusalem is overcrowded and the public services do not meet the needs of the Palestinian population,” the report said.

Israeli refusal to cooperate with United Nations investigation represents an attempt to shield alleged war criminals from justice

Palestinian Center for Human Rights

21 April 2009

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) is concerned at recent Israeli statements implying that the State of Israel will not cooperate with the independent investigation established by the United Nations Human Rights Council.

The investigation is led by Justice Richard Goldstone, former chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Both tribunals were established by the United Nations Security Council, acting under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter. The independent fact finding mission is mandated to investigate all violations of international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law, related to the recent 23 day Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

The offensive claimed the lives of 1,417 Palestinians, 1,181 (83%) of whom were non-combatants: the protected persons of IHL. 13 Israelis also died, including 3 civilians. Civilian property in the Gaza Strip was extensively destroyed, initial investigations indicate that 21,000 houses were completely or partially destroyed, 6,636 dunums of agricultural land were razed, and approximately 1,500 factories and workshops were completely destroyed.

The excessively disproportionate civilian death toll and the extensive destruction of Gaza’s property and infrastructure demand judicial review. Many of the cases documented by PCHR amount to war crimes, and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions.

PCHR believe that Israel’s unwillingness to cooperate with this independent investigation represents an attempt to shield alleged perpetrators of war crimes from justice. Israel has consistently proven unwilling to effectively investigate serious allegations of illegal behaviour committed by its forces in the occupied Palestinian territory.

On 30 March 2009, Military Attorney General Achivai Mandelblit closed an investigation into Israeli soldiers accounts of alleged crimes committed in the Gaza Strip. Although the soldiers had made allegations that including war crimes and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, the inquiry was terminated after just 11 days.

On 29 January 2009, the Central Investigative Judge No. 4 of the Audencia Nacional (Spanish National Court) ruled that Israeli authorities were not willing to investigate and bring to trial persons responsible for the Shehadeh assassination in 2002.

Since the outbreak of the second Intifada, Israel no longer opens a mandatory investigation into cases where Israeli forces killed or wounded Palestinian civilians not taking part in hostilities.

PCHR believe that the rule of law must be upheld: it is civilians who suffer the consequences of illegal acts. A lack of accountability and a culture of impunity only serve to encourage continued violations of IHL and international human rights law.

PCHR remind the State of Israel of its legally-binding obligation – as codified in Article 146 of the Fourth Geneva Convention – to effectively investigate and prosecute all those suspected of committing grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions. Should Israel prove unable or unwilling to do so, as is evidently the case, then in accordance with the principle of universal jurisdiction, all High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions are obliged to search for and prosecute persons accused of committing grave breaches, irrespective of where theses crimes occurred. There is no valid pretext, legal or otherwise, for not respecting the Conventions in their entirety.

Israel snubs UN Gaza war inquiry

Al Jazeera

16 April 2009

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.

Pity for the tiger is injustice to the sheep

By Fida Qishta – ISM co-ordinator in the Gaza Strip

Visit Fida’s blog here.

The situation has been exploited very cleverly by the Israeli Ministry of War. Yes, the Ministry of War. The soldiers who call themselves soldiers defending Israeli security are continuing a bloody history of war crimes against Palestinians, from 1932 until 2009. During the last two days when since ground incursion started, things have been unbelievable, hard to watch or to talk about.

When the Israeli army evacuated people from the city of Jabalya city, the people moved to UN schools. They thought it would be safe, but it wasn’t. An Israeli tank shells attacked them. 42 were killed, most of them children, and more than 95 were injured. That increased the total number of children and women victims, until this minute when I wrote this piece, to 665 killed. 215 of them were children, and 89 were women. And more than 2950 people were injured. The numbers will maybe help you see the truth.

The Abu Asha family is one of the families that decided to leave the northern Gaza Strip to be in what they imagined would be a safe place. They were moving to the town of Deir Al- Balah in the middle of the Gaza Strip. But on their way on the road along Gaza’s seacoast, Israeli gunboats attacked them, and all of them were killed. Seven members of the same family were killed. They thought that they would be in a safer place. But there is no safe place in the Gaza Strip, and no safety with these killers.

Many Palestinian paramedics have been killed. The last week six paramedics were killed and many injured. Most the fire stations have been attacked. Do these people or these stations represent Hamas? What’s happening in Gaza Strip is a war crime, and we need the honest people in the world to stop it.

These outrages, which have shocked the consciences of the world’s civilized nations, but they haven’t moved their governments. These governments hope to shape a new reality in Gaza and in Palestinian affairs.

The situation remains extremely tense. What is happening in Gaza Strip is the outcome of 14 years of failed consultation and negotiation. This is Israelis peace and the world’s democracy. I still don’t understand, if the world didn’t like Hamas as a Palestinian party, why did they accept their participation in Palestinian elections? When they won, the world didn’t like them. Why then did the UN send observers to monitor the elections? There are many questions in Gazans’ minds which lead them to believe that there is no democracy in this world, at least not from the USA not EU. Does the world call right-wing parties in the Middle East terrorist because they are Islamic Parties, and then accept Israelis right-wing and left-wing Israeli parties who are killing Palestinians now in Gaza?

A big deal has been made of the homemade rockets which hit the Sderot settlement which sits on Palestinian land stolen by these settlers in 1948 from Palestinians who then became refugees in nearby Gaza. And nobody paid attention to the children and women who were killed in Gaza when the world thought there was a truce. There was no truce because over 21 Palestinians were killed and over 70 injured by the Israelis army. Did you hear about them? I guess not. You just heard about the rockets that hit Sderot, especially the Israeli woman who was injured yesterday and the 42 year-old woman who was killed. No worries about Palestinians and Gazans.

The humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate in the Gaza Strip. Over 80 children, 40 women and 250 total civilians have been killed. Most of these people were killed at home, or coming home from school or work. Humanitarian aid is still a big problem, including the lack of medicine and food. The Israeli government said that they opened the border crossings to let Palestinians travel to Egypt for medical treatment and for humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip. It’s like the wolf killing the sheep and then selling its leather. Why did they shoot them if they want them to be in good health? Why didn’t they stop the airstrikes before they killed and injured all these civilians? They tell the world that the food trucks enter the Gaza Strip. Do you know how many trucks? Do you know that the Gaza Strip is cut into two parts now by the Israeli army? That means that if the humanitarian aid gets through into Rafah, it will never reach Gaza City, because they cut the main road into two parts. It reminds me of the Abu Holy checkpoint which used to divide the Gaza Strip in two. My friends and I used to wait to go to our university for hours and hours. And at the end of the day we went back home, without attending any classes. Our only class was on how to wait.

My mother is sitting in the door of our house counting the drones and the F16s. I think that if I asked her to count the airstrikes she would do it. People here still joke sometimes. One of my friends sent me a text message that said:

Look outside, the F-16 smiling for you,
The missiles are dancing in front of you,
The Zanana (drone) is singing for you,
Because the Israeli nation requested them all to wish you a Happy New Year