Posted on March 31st, 2009 by Marian Houk
Amos Harel, the military correspondent of Haaretz who broke the story about what IDF soldiers said in a post-war group discussion at the Oranim military academy near Haifa, wrote a scathing response to the IDF announcement that it had finished its investigation and determined that the soldiers’ accounts were based on “rumors” and “hearsay” – [...]
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Filed under: Gaza, International Humanitarian Law, International Law, Israel, Journalism and Journalists, Palestine & Palestinians
Posted on March 30th, 2009 by Marian Houk
The IDF announced this evening that it was closing its short-lived investigation into reports that soldiers described “permissive rules of engagement” that led to — among other things — Israeli soldiers shooting unarmed civilians during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. This investigation was, apparently, focused pnly on remarks by Israeli soldiers in a post-Gaza-war debriefing [...]
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Filed under: Gaza, International Humanitarian Law, International Law, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians
Posted on March 30th, 2009 by Marian Houk
The Jerusalem Post’s well-informed military correspondent Yaakov Katz wrote in an article published early today that the IDF has an “unmanned version of the D9 bulldozer – called ‘Black Thunder‘ – [which] was developed several years ago by the Engineering Corps and … only recently declassified”. These are large, very large machines, that apparently were [...]
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Filed under: Boundaries & Borders, Gaza, International Humanitarian Law, International Law, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians
Posted on March 29th, 2009 by Marian Houk
Craig Murray, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan and a human rights activist, has written on his blog that the British Foreign Office has admitted using intelligence obtained via torture: “This is the most important blog post I have ever made. I would be grateful if you could do everything in your power to disseminate a [...]
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Filed under: Ambassadors and other diplomats, Guantanamo, Torture, USA
Posted on March 28th, 2009 by Marian Houk
Haaretz’s military correspondent Amos Harel has just published another article supporting claims of grave misconduct during the IDF Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. He wrote, in the article published on Friday, that “GOC Southern Command Yoav Galant’s meticulous planning for Operation Cast Lead was mapped out to the last detail … [But] … The General [...]
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Filed under: Gaza, International Humanitarian Law, International Law, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians
Posted on March 27th, 2009 by Marian Houk
Israel’s recent use of white phosphorus bombs in densely populated areas of Gaza violated the rules of war, according to a leading human rights organization. Human Rights Watch said that even before its researchers were able to enter Gaza, they had watched from adjacent perimeter areas in Israel as white phosphorus bombs exploded in the [...]
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Filed under: Gaza, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians
Posted on March 27th, 2009 by Marian Houk
In his recent report to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Special Rapporteur Richard Falk wrote this — but why does he call it the “barrier”/”Barrier”?: “Israel has largely ignored the Advisory Opinion of 9 July 2004 of the International Court of Justice regarding the barrier…
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Filed under: Boundaries & Borders, International Law, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians
Posted on March 26th, 2009 by Marian Houk
The most striking detail about the IDF attack with white phosphorus on the main UNRWA compound in Gaza City — the day UNSG BAN Ki-Moon arrived in the region — was how long it lasted. Some three hours. During which time, UNRWA staff and officials were making frantic phone calls to various contacts in the [...]
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Filed under: BAN Ki-Moon, Gaza, International Humanitarian Law, International Law, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians, UN Secretary-General, United Nations, United Nations Agencies and Programmes
Posted on March 25th, 2009 by Marian Houk
The White Phosphorus attacks recounted by Human Rights Watch in its just-released report, “Rain of Fire”, were only part of horrors of war inflicted upon civilians in Gaza during the 22-day IDF Operation Cast Lead, 27 December to 18 January. Khuza’a village, east of Khan Younis, and not far from the Israeli border, was attacked [...]
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Filed under: Gaza, International Humanitarian Law, International Law, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians
Posted on March 25th, 2009 by Marian Houk
According to the HRW report released today on the IDF’s use of White Phosphorus during its 22-day Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, attacks by White Phosphorus began in different areas of the Gaza Strip after the IDF began its ground offensive on 3 January. One of the worst accounts is this one, about a young [...]
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Filed under: Gaza, International Humanitarian Law, International Law, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians
