Tag: War crime

IDF soldier: We used Palestinians as human shields

Amos Harel | Ha’aretz

15 July 2009

The Israel Defense Forces used Palestinians as human shields during Operation Cast Lead last January despite a 2005 High Court ruling outlawing the practice, a Golani brigade soldier says. He says he did not see Palestinians being used as human shields but was told by his commanders that this occurred.

The soldier says his unit employed a variation of the practice, the so-called “neighbor procedure,” when it checked homes for Palestinian militants.

The soldier’s testimony appears in a collection of accounts being published this week by Breaking the Silence, an organization that collects IDF soldiers’ testimony on human rights abuses by the military. The Golani soldier gave similar testimony in a meeting with a Haaretz reporter.

The IDF Spokesman’s Office, for its part, says that “the IDF regrets the fact that a human rights organization would again present to the country and the world a report containing anonymous, generalized testimony without checking the details or their reliability, and without giving the IDF, as a matter of minimal fairness, the opportunity to check the matters and respond to them before publication.”

The soldier’s allegations relate to IDF conduct during fighting in the eastern part of Gaza City. The soldier, a staff sergeant, says that in his unit and others, Palestinians were often sent into houses to determine if there was anyone inside.

“The practice was not to call it ‘the neighbor procedure.’ Instead it was called ‘Johnny,'” the soldier said, using IDF slang for Palestinian civilians. The IDF employed this practice extensively during the second intifada, before it was outlawed by the High Court of Justice in 2005.

At every home, the soldier said, if there were armed occupants, the house was besieged, with the goal of getting the militants out of the building alive. The soldier said he was present at several such operations.

In an incident his commanders told him about, three armed militants were in a house. Attack helicopters were brought in. “They … again sent the [Palestinian] neighbor in. At first he said that nothing had happened [to the armed men],” the soldier said.

“Again they brought in attack helicopters and fired. They again sent in the neighbor. He said there were two dead and one still alive. They then brought in a bulldozer and began to knock the house down on him until [the neighbor] entered.” The soldier said he had been told that the only militant remaining alive was captured and turned over to the Shin Bet security service.

The Golani soldier also testified that his commanders reported incidents in which Palestinians were given sledgehammers to break through walls to let the army enter through the side of houses. The army feared that the doors were booby-trapped.

The soldier added, however, that although the unit commander justified the use of the so-called Johnny procedure, the commander said he was not aware that sledgehammers had been given to civilians or that weapons were pointed at civilians. The commander said the allegations would be looked into.

The soldier said he had heard of other instances in which Palestinian civilians were used as human shields. One time, for example, a Palestinian was put at the front of an IDF force with a gun pointed at him from behind. But the soldier said he had not seen this himself.

The IDF Spokesman’s Office said in a statement that on initial consideration, a few of the allegations appear to be similar to allegations published several months ago after a lecture by officers to cadets at a pre-military academy.

“Now, too,” the spokesman said, “a considerable portion of the testimony is based on rumors and secondhand accounts. Most of the incidents relate to anonymous testimony lacking in identifying details, and accordingly it is not possible to check the allegations on an individual basis in a way that would enable an investigation, confirmation or refutation.”

The spokesman said the Breaking the Silence report suggests that the organization might not be interested in a reliable comprehensive examination of the allegations, “and to our regret this is not the first time the organization has taken this course of action. The IDF is obligated to examine every well-founded complaint it receives.”

The spokesman also noted that allegations by Breaking the Silence containing specifics would be investigated.

“The IDF expects that every soldier and commander who suspects there was a witness to a violation of orders or procedures, and especially with respect to violations causing injury to noncombatants, will bring all of the details to the attention of authorized parties,” the spokesman said.

UN public hearing in Gaza broadcasts accounts of war victims

Rory McCarthy | The Guardian

30 June 2009

The UN has held an unprecedented public hearing in Gaza to broadcast live witness accounts from Palestinians who described seeing their relatives killed and injured during Israel’s January war.

One after another, they detailed Israeli rocket strikes and artillery shelling near a mosque, a UN school and on several homes across Gaza during the three-week war. The two-day hearing is part of an inquiry by the UN human rights council into the war led by the respected South African judge, Richard Goldstone.

Israel has refused entry for the inquiry team, accusing the UN council of an anti-Israel bias even though Goldstone himself is Jewish. But another round of hearings will be held in Geneva next week, for which some Israeli witnesses are expected to be flown in. They may include residents of Sderot, near Gaza, which has suffered repeated Palestinian rocket attacks.

“The purpose of the public hearings in Gaza and Geneva is to show the faces and broadcast the voices of victims – all of the victims,” Goldstone said last week. He had sat on South Africa’s constitutional court after the fall of apartheid and was a chief prosecutor on the UN criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

Yesterday’s public hearing was the first in a UN fact-finding mission, though there is little chance it will lead to prosecutions. Up to 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed during the war.

Mousa Silawi, 91, described an explosion at the entrance to a mosque in the Jabaliya refugee camp late on 3 January, which killed 17 people, including three of his sons and two grandchildren.

“After evening prayer a huge shell hit the mosque,” he said. “It was absolutely incredible. We starting screaming and calling for God.” Silawi, who is blind, was led away to safety and was then told that his sons had died. “Where is law? Where is justice? I have lived 91 years. I have seen everything, but nothing of this sort. It was such a catastrophe,” he said. His son, Moteeh, the mosque’s sheikh, said there had been no warning before the missile struck. “People came to the mosque for safety and we saw bloodshed,” he said. “I was leading my father out when my own foot stepped on the head of a small child,” he said. “I saw people carrying decapitated heads and parts of bodies. I cannot describe what I saw … What crime did the children commit?”

In another case Ziad al-Deeb, a university student, described how an Israeli shell struck in the courtyard of his family home in Jabaliya on 6 January. The blast killed 11 of his relatives and sliced off both his legs. First he heard an explosion just outside the wall of the house and then moments later a second shell landed in their yard.

“In a single instant we had all of our joys replaced with blood,” he said. “There was a severe whistling in my ears and a pillar of smoke and dust and that obliterated what happened. When I looked up I found I had lost both my legs. I was sprawled over the body of my own brother. I looked for my father and others, and I found them motionless. Most of them were dead.”

He lost his father, grandfather, two brothers and a sister in the blast, which was one of several mortar shells that fell in quick succession that afternoon near a UN prep school being used as a shelter for those fleeing the fighting. Between 30 and 40 Palestinians were killed near the school. An earlier UN inquiry has already found Israel responsible for the shelling.

After hearing his evidence, Goldstone said: “We extend our deep condolences to you and your family for your terrible loss and it makes your coming here all the more painful for you.”

Yesterday’s hearing was held at a UN office in Gaza City and then broadcast live to a hall at a nearby cultural centre, deserted save for a handful of journalists. However, the hearing was broadcast on some television stations, including one al-Jazeera channel. The UN inquiry team will issue a final report in August.

PCHR and Spanish civil society organize conferences in Madrid In defense of universal jurisdiction

Palestinian Centre for Human Rights

21 June 2009

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), in cooperation with Spanish civil society partners and national and international human rights organizations, are organizing two events in Madrid, Spain, on 22 and 24 June 2009. The events will take place in the Spanish Cultural Centre and the Spanish Congress.

These events are being organized in opposition to a proposed amendment to Spain’s universal jurisdiction legislation. On 19 May 2009, the Spanish Parliament requested that the government draft legislation limiting the scope of Spain’s universal jurisdiction legislation, this amendment will be presented to the Lower House on 26 June. Spain has long been an advocate of universal jurisdiction; it is widely believed that the current amendments are introduced consequent to concerted political pressure on behalf of States intent on shielding alleged war criminals from justice.

PCHR, and Spanish and international civil society and human rights organizations, are united in opposition to the amendment. Universal jurisdiction is an essential component in the international legal order. Crucially, it is also of critical importance in the fight against impunity. International law grants explicit protection to civilian populations. However, in order for the law to be relevant – to be capable of protecting civilians – it must be enforced. As long as States and individuals are allowed to act with impunity, they will continue to violate international law: innocent civilians will continue to suffer the horrific consequences.

PCHR wish to emphasize that universal jurisdiction is not merely a Palestinian issue. It is a legal mechanism intended to ensure that all those responsible for international crimes – which include genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and torture – are brought to justice. Universal jurisdiction is only enacted when States with a more traditional jurisdictional nexus to the crime (related, inter alia, to the place of commission, or the perpetrator’s nationality) prove unwilling or unable to genuinely investigate and prosecute: when they shield those accused of international crimes from justice.

In the interests of victims throughout the world, and all those who continue to suffer at the hands of oppressive regimes, universal jurisdiction must be pursued and strengthened. Universal jurisdiction is a fundamental component in upholding the rule of law. It is a key tool in the fight for universal justice, whereby the protections of international law may be extended to all individuals without discrimination, and victims’ rights ensured through the legal punishment of guilty parties.

PCHR’s Director, Mr. Raji Sourani, was due to present key-note speeches in Madrid. However, owing to the illegal siege of the Gaza Strip – a form of collective punishment which has now been in place for 24 continuous months – he has been denied permission to travel.

On 19 May 2009, the Spanish Parliament passed a resolution requesting that the government limit the scope of Spain’s universal jurisdiction legislation. The proposal calls for the existing legislation to be modified so that cases may only be pursued if they involve Spanish victims or if the accused are present on Spanish soil. The government’s amendment will be presented to Parliament on 26 June. If passed, the legislation will then be passed to the Upper House, before being returned to the Lower House for final approval.

This move represents a regression for Spain, a country that has long acknowledged the fundamental importance of universal jurisdiction. In recent years, a number of high profile universal jurisdiction cases have been pursued in Spanish courts, including Pinochet, Scilingo, and Guatemalan Generals. The Spanish Audencia Nacional (National Court) is currently investigating a case brought by PCHR and Spanish partners in relation to the al-Daraj attack of 2002. This war crime resulted in the deaths of 16 Palestinians, including 14 civilians. Approximately 150 people were injured.

On 4 May 2009, Judge Fernando Andreu of the Spanish Audencia Nacional (National Court) announced his decision to continue the investigation into the events surrounding the al-Daraj attack. The Spanish Court explicitly rejected the arguments of the Spanish Prosecutor and the State of Israel, claiming that Israel had adequately investigated the crime. The judge has confirmed that this position is incorrect, and contrary to the rule of law.
The victims and their legal team have placed their trust in the criminal justice system, believing that this is the only mechanism whereby accountability can be pursued and impunity combated. This trust must not be denied on the basis of political pressure. Politics cannot be placed above the rights of individuals.

On 22 June a roundtable discussion will be held in the Circulo de Bellas Artes room of the Valle Incan. On 24 June an information and advocacy conference will be held in Spanish congress. Both events are themed “In Defense of Universal Jurisdiction.” The events, which will be accompanied by press conferences, will be attended by members of Spanish civil society, Spanish parliamentarians and judges, and representatives of national and international human rights organizations.

PCHR stress that politics cannot be allowed to prevail over the rule of law. Victims’ rights to an effective judicial remedy must be upheld, and those accused of international crimes must be investigated and prosecuted in accordance with the demands of international law. The fight against impunity cannot be lost.

For further information, please see the universal jurisdiction section of PCHR’s website: www.pchrgaza.org.

UN’s Gaza war crimes investigation faces obstacles

YNet News

9 June 2009

After interviewing dozens of war victims and poring through the files of human rights groups, a veteran UN war crimes investigator acknowledged that his probe into possible crimes by Israel and Hamas is unlikely to lead to prosecutions.

Israel has refused to cooperate, depriving his team access to military sources and victims of Hamas rockets. And Hamas security often accompanied his team during their five-day trip to Gaza last week, raising questions about the ability of witnesses to freely describe the militant group’s actions.

But the chief barrier remains the lack of a court with jurisdiction to hear any resulting cases.

“From a practical political point of view, I wish I could be optimistic,” Judge Richard Goldstone said, citing the legal and political barriers to war crimes trials.

Still, Goldstone hopes his group’s report — due in September — will spur action by other UN bodies and foreign governments.

Goldstone, a South African judge who prosecuted war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, refused to comment on the investigation’s content. But AP interviews with more than a dozen Gazans who spoke to the team reveal a wide-ranging investigation into the war’s most prominent allegations.

In Gaza, Goldstone’s 15-member team met with Hamas and UN officials, collected reports from Palestinian human rights groups and interviewed dozens of survivors.

Among them was a Bedouin man who told the investigators how he watched Israeli soldiers shoot his mother and sister dead as they fled their home waving white flags. But he, too, doubted he would see justice.

“The committee was just like all the others who have come,” said 46-year-old Majed Hajjaj. “There are lots of reports written, but they’re nothing more than ink on paper.”

The UN team also stepped through the shrapnel-peppered doorway of a mosque where an Israeli missile strike killed 16 people, witnesses said. During the war, Israel accused Hamas of hiding weapons in mosques. Witnesses said no weapons or militants were present.

They inspected holes in the street near a UN school where Israeli artillery killed 42 people, and visited the charred skeleton of a hospital torched by Israeli shells. In both cases, the army said militants had fired from nearby, and witnesses said some had been near the school.

And they visited the Samouni family, whose members say they took refuge on soldiers’ orders in a house that was then shelled, killing 21 people.

Israel denies the account, but says the house may have been hit in crossfire with militants.

Israel launched the offensive to stop eight years of Hamas rocket attacks. Palestinian human rights groups say more than 1,400 Gazans were killed, most of them civilians. Israel says around 1,100 Gazans were killed and that most were militants, but — unlike the Palestinian researchers — did not publish the names of the dead. Thirteen Israelis were also killed, three of them civilians.

Human rights groups called for war crimes investigations soon after the war’s end, accusing Israel of disproportionate force and failing to protect civilians. Some groups and the Israeli army said Hamas fought from civilian areas and used human shields — all of which can be war crimes.

Hamas ‘very cooperative’

Israel’s refusal to cooperate meant that Goldstone — a Jew with close ties to the Jewish state — had to enter Gaza via Egypt.

Israel alleges anti-Israeli bias by the probe’s sponsor, the UN Human Rights Council, which has a record of criticizing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said investigators could not reach an “unbiased conclusion” since they couldn’t question those who fired rockets at Israel.

When asked if the team met with Hamas fighters, team member Hina Jilani declined to comment, but said Hamas had been “very cooperative.”

A Hamas official, Ahmed Yousef, said he hoped the group’s report would be “like ammunition in the hands of the people who are willing to sue Israeli war criminals.”

Some survivors said the team pressed them on Israel’s assertion that it made warning phone calls before airstrikes and whether militants fought or fired rockets from their neighborhoods.

“They asked for all the details. Were there rockets fired from the area, why did they target this area specifically, stuff like that,” said Ziad Deeb, 22, who told the team how he lost 11 relatives and both his legs when an artillery shell exploded on his doorstep.

Alex Whiting, a professor at Harvard law school, called Goldstone “supremely qualified” for such an investigation, but said such cases are hard to investigate, especially without military records. He also said there are few mechanisms for prosecution if crimes are uncovered.

But even without prosecution, Whiting said, inquiries can spur countries to investigate themselves or affect future wartime conduct.

“Many times, the immediate result is a disappointment for the victims and survivors, but the hope is for the future,” he said.

War crimes in Gaza: Palestinian lawyers take on Israel

Juliane von Mittelstaedt | Der Spiegel

5 June 2009

Four months after the war in Gaza, Palestinian lawyers have prepared 936 lawsuits against the Israeli military over alleged war crimes. Some of the cases could soon be tried at Spain’s National Court under universal jurisdiction.

Four months after the war in Gaza, Palestinian lawyers have prepared 936 lawsuits against the Israeli military over alleged war crimes. Some of the cases could soon be tried at Spain’s National Court under universal jurisdiction.

When Iyad al-Alami wants to survey the fallout of the Gaza war, he simply has to step out of his office and walk up the stairs to the top floor of the building where he works. There, piles of shrapnel, twisted missile shells and massive armor-piercing shells are stored. New material is added every day, filling the boxes that cover the floor and are stacked along the walls.

For Al-Alami, the debris is evidence of Israeli army war crimes. He hopes the weapons can be used again — but this time in a courtroom.

Al-Alami is the man behind efforts to assemble the biggest ever wave of lawsuits against Israel. He heads the legal department of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) in Gaza City. From his windowless office, the taciturn lawyer is trying to convince courts around the world to take up his cause. Al-Alami is 45 years old, and he bears a slight resemblance to former Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, whose image is hanging on Al-Alami’s wall.

Although he is by no means a propagandist, Al-Alami refers to “Israeli war crimes” as if he were discussing a self-evident fact. But he sees himself as neutral, or at least as neutral as a Palestinian in the Gaza Strip can be. He has defended Hamas members in Fatah prisons and Fatah members in Hamas prisons. He has represented hundreds, perhaps even thousands, against the Israeli army since he co-founded the PCHR 14 years ago. In the best outcomes, Israel paid compensation for victims or convicted its soldiers of theft. But the center’s victories have all been minor. “We live in a system of impunity,” says Al-Alami.

The 4,747 Palestinian deaths which, according to the Israel human rights organization B’Tselem, resulted during the second intifada — the Palestinian uprising that began in September 2000 — led to 30 criminal charges against Israeli soldiers, five convictions and only one longer jail term. According to the PCHR, 1,417 people died in Israel’s most recent war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and many of the dead were civilians. This must not happen again, says Al-Alami. His dream is to see an international tribunal for Gaza, equipped with his files and evidence. And it seems as if his vision could soon come true, at least in part.

Dozens of attorneys around the world — in Norway, Britain, New Zealand, Spain and the Netherlands — are working on the Gaza lawsuits. In a globalized world, justice is also global: The basis for the initiative is the principle of universal jurisdiction in international law, which makes it possible to file suits worldwide for war crimes, genocide, torture and crimes against humanity.

In Norway, six attorneys have filed a lawsuit for human rights violations against Israel. They are seeking a European warrant for the arrest of senior Israel officials — including former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

In London, Daniel Machover and Kate Maynard, attorneys with the law firm of Hickman & Rose Solicitors, are waiting for one of the people responsible for the war on the Israeli side to travel abroad. If the official travels to a country where it is legally possible to file charges for war crimes, a local attorney will immediately petition in that country for the arrest of the Israeli official in question.

Four years ago, the two lawyers secured a warrant for the arrest of Doron Almog who, as head of the Israel Defense Forces’ Southern Command, ordered so-called targeted killings. Almog, after receiving advance warning, escaped arrest at London’s Heathrow Airport by refusing to leave his plane and flying back to Israel. Since then, senior Israeli military officials, and even some politicians, are no longer willing to risk travel to Britain.

Al-Alami is currently pinning his hopes on Spain’s National Court in Madrid, which has become something of an unofficial world court. The National Court issued the arrest warrant against former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, and it is now investigating allegations of detainee torture at Guantanamo. One of the court’s judges is investigating three Chinese cabinet ministers and other high-ranking Communist Party officials for their role in suppressing the Tibetan uprising in 2008.

And now the court is also investigating charges against the leadership of Israel, a democratic country and the only party to the war that can be sued. Meanwhile, Hamas remains unpunished for its acts of terror.

The basis for the Spanish court’s actions is a lawsuit filed in January against seven high-ranking Israeli military officials and politicians for the targeted killing of Hamas militia leader Sheik Salah Shehadeh in 2008, an attack that also claimed the lives of 14 civilians. The case could be suspended, but to prevent this from happening, Spanish attorney Gonzalo Boyé plans to expand the suit to include a total of 13 cases compiled by the PCHR. The cases, which involve disappearances, torture and killings, go back to 1983, although most are from January 2009. Boyé’s goal is to demonstrate that Israel systematically committed crimes, which is why the victims of the Gaza campaign are the focus of the lawsuit. “One case is a war crime,” says Boyé, “but 10 cases? That’s something else.” The new charges involve crimes against humanity.

And if it becomes necessary, perhaps because the Spanish government, under pressure from abroad, is currently trying to limit the universal claims of its courts, Boyé is prepared to introduce a victim with ties to Spain: a Palestinian with relatives in Barcelona.

So far Israel has refused to cooperate with any systematic investigations. It rejects the International Criminal Court (ICC) and is not cooperating with Richard Goldstone, the head of a United Nations Human Rights Council fact-finding mission to Gaza. There have also been no criminal investigations into charges, brought by the Red Cross and human rights organizations, that the wounded could not be evacuated during the Gaza war, ambulances were shot at and civilians and refugees were attacked.

The only Israeli investigation to date addressed reports by soldiers claiming to have witnessed indiscriminate shootings of Palestinian civilians. After spending 11 days investigating the allegations, a commission concluded that the alleged killings were nothing but rumors.

The Israeli army has now completed an internal review of the Gaza war, and has concluded that its soldiers made mistakes in only a “very small number of incidents.” These incidents “were unavoidable” and of the sort that “occur in all combat situations.”

Systematic war crimes, of the kind which Al-Alami accuses the Israelis of carrying out, are not easy to prove. The attorneys must demonstrate that the Israel military attacked civilians without reason, perhaps even deliberately. They must prove that these attacks were not part of the conduct of war against Hamas fighters, and that they were not simply cases of technical or human error, but the senseless taking of human life. But who is to decide whether such killings were accidental or intentional and if they show carelessness or cruelty?

On the other hand, no war has ever been as well-documented as the Gaza conflict, despite the Israeli ban on journalists. The Gaza Strip is small, witnesses are unable to leave, and evidence is preserved. Keeping this in mind, Iyad al-Alami and his team of eight attorneys, helped by dozens of volunteers, began questioning witnesses during the bombings. They collected shrapnel, took photographs, made videos and recorded the damage, often risking their lives to do so. “We had to collect evidence as quickly as possible before it was gone, before witnesses disappeared, victims died and the dead were buried,” says al-Alami.

In this way, they reconstructed the war, day-by-day and bomb-by-bomb. They compared the statements of eyewitnesses with the course of the war and with media reports. International weapons experts prepared analyses, and Palestinian doctors certified causes of death. The team even went to cemeteries to determine whether the graves matched the dead. “We have to be sure that everything is right,” says al-Alami.

The PCHR has recorded 936 cases, which represents the most comprehensive documentation of this war. They include alleged incidents of children shot at close range, women burned by white phosphorus shells and entire families buried under their houses.

“Winning a case, just one, would be enough,” says al-Alami. “Then I would retire immediately, because I would have achieved everything.” Just one out of 936 cases. Al-Alami needs the perfect case.

The perfect case would have certain characteristics. The dead must be civilians. Credible witnesses are needed. Hamas fighters must not have been in the area, as they might have abused local residents as human shields. And the identities of those who gave the orders and those who did the killing must be clear.

Al-Alami refers again and again to the 13 blue ring binders stacked on his desk. Each binder represents one of 13 cases, and together the cases represent more than 100 dead. They are the worst cases, the cases for global justice, and Spanish attorney Gonzalo Boyé will use some as evidence to support his case of crimes against humanity. There is one ring binder for the 48 members of the Samuni family killed in the Gaza offensive, and another for the six members of the Abu Halima family burned by white phosphorus shells. There is one for the 11 members of the family of Hamas leader Nizar Rayan, whose house was destroyed by an Israeli air strike. There is one folder for those killed at the Arafat police academy. And there is one for the family of Amer al-Dayah.

Amer al-Dayah, 28, is the only member of a family of 23 who survived the bombardment of his parents’ house. The dead included his parents, three brothers, three sisters-in-law, two sisters and 12 nieces and nephews. Al-Alami shows some of the photos in the files. One depicts a child’s head in the rubble, eyes wide open, limbs severed. There was nothing left of nine of the victims, and al-Dayah found parts of his mother’s body as far as 100 meters (328 feet) away. “My family was simply gone,” says al-Dayah, a stout man with a boyish face.

The fate of his family is one of the first cases Gonzalo Boyé plans to submit in Madrid. Al-Dayah, the sole survivor, is pinning his hopes on the European court. He also knows that it could be years — if ever — before a verdict is pronounced.

In its final report, the Israel army commented on the death of al-Dayah’s family. The pilot, the report reads, had erroneously received incorrect coordinates. Instead of the intended target, a warehouse, the bomb hit the al-Dayahs. In other words, it was a “professional mistake,” nothing more.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan