UN-Truth

The Jerusalem Post reported today (Thursday) that “A day after the release of the scathing Goldstone Commission report that accused Israel of war crimes, Jerusalem on Wednesday revealed its defensive strategy: convince the world’s democracies the report handcuffs them in their fight against terrorism, and keep discussion of the document confined to the Human Rights Council in Geneva …

The JPOSt report continues: “Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who on Wednesday termed the [Goldstone Commission] report a ‘prize for terrorists’ that makes it more difficult for democratic countries to combat them, will be speaking in the coming days to a list of prime ministers of countries represented on the Human Rights Council, lobbying them to oppose any resolution adopting the findings of the report … Another senior government official said that while until now the Foreign Ministry’s focus regarding the Goldstone Report was to argue about Israel’s right to defend itself, and to deflect accusations of war crimes, since the document was issued the message has been recalibrated and is now portraying the report itself as part of a greater problem facing the West: defending itself against terrorists … ‘We are trying to create awareness in the public that this report threatens every democratic country’, the official said. ‘Those who are happy with the report are those trying to blow us up’. In an effort to get this message across, the Foreign Ministry on Wednesday launched a “Gaza Facts” Web site (here ), which links to an in-depth, 160-page document on all aspects of Operation Cast Lead, from an Israeli perspective … Israel, meanwhile, is also mounting an aggressive diplomatic campaign at the United Nations, with Israeli officials planning to meet on Wednesday with US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice, as well as with other US administration officials and members of Congress … American and European officials have so far declined to offer specifics on how they will handle the report. ‘Justice Goldstone’s report regarding alleged violations of international humanitarian law and abuses during the Gaza conflict was just released yesterday. The issues it addresses are complex and the findings will take time to digest’, one US official said Wednesday. ‘We will review it carefully.” This JPost report can be read in full here.

Haaretz reported today that “Israel on Wednesday asked a number of senior members of the Obama administration to assist in curbing the international fallout from the Goldstone Commission report released this week, which accuses Israel of committing war crimes in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead. The Foreign Ministry decided Wednesday to focus their efforts to combat the report’s accusations on the United States, Russia and a few other members of the United Nations Security Council and the Human Rights Council that are involved in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Israeli message is that the Goldstone report threatens those countries because it makes the war on terror very difficult, and therefore efforts must be made to prevent it from being brought before the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised the issue Wednesday with U.S. special Middle East envoy George Mitchell, while Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon discussed it with U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice and other senior officials … Ayalon, who is on a working visit to the United States, began Tuesday to transmit messages to senior members of the U.S. administration and Congress on the need to object to the report. He noted that the same approach that was taken to United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379 equating Zionism with racism needs to be taken regarding the Goldstone report. President Shimon Peres Wednesday released a statement saying that the Goldstone report ‘made a mockery of history’. The Prime Minister’s Office decided Wednesday that Peres would take the front lines in Israel’s campaign against the report. Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman would not express themselves publicly on the matter, but would engage in quiet diplomacy. Senior Foreign Ministry officials said Wednesday that Israel’s decision not to cooperate with the Goldstone Commission was the right one. They insisted this was the case, despite the fact that every Israeli who testified before the Goldstone Commission independently, like Noam Shalit, father of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, had an impact on the report and Goldstone himself related to each of the Israeli testimonies. ‘We knew the report was going to be harsh, but Goldstone surprised us with how harsh’, a senior Foreign Ministry official said. ‘It just goes to show we were right not to cooperate. If we would have, we would have legitimized this scandal’.” The Haaretz report added that “The 575-page report describes 36 specific cases in which the IDF ostensibly broke international laws. A great many of the cases were already investigated by the IDF following the operation, within the units that took part in the fighting and by five committees established by order of Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi. In most cases, the investigations determined that the soldiers acted according to orders as well as international law. However, it has not yet been decided whether to make public use of the material gathered by the IDF to refute the findings of the Goldstone panel, or to leave it as evidence in the event that suits are brought against specific Israel Defense Forces officers abroad. The IDF and the Justice Ministry are concerned that the report will make it difficult for Israeli officers to travel abroad … Following Operation Cast Lead, Haaretz revealed a directive by the IDF not to publish the names and photos of battalion commanders who took part in the operation due to fear of legal reprisals against them. A few months later, the IDF reversed itself on the matter … A joint panel of the Justice Ministry, IDF and Foreign Ministry already has a team of legal experts that advise officers not to leave the country and in some cases has prevented them from visiting specific countries … Israel is concerned that officers, and even senior government officials and ministers who were involved in approving the operation, would be at risk of being arrested in any country that is a signatory to the treaty recognizing the ICC in The Hague and is therefore obligated to respect its arrest warrants. The authorities are particularly concerned about officers visiting countries that allow their legal systems “universal jurisdiction” – following complaints filed by private citizens or the initiatives of investigative judges – to try an individual suspected of war crimes in another country. Such countries include Britain, Belgium, Spain and Norway … Every soldier and officer is required to undergo a security briefing before traveling abroad; over the past year, some officers who have participated in the fighting in Gaza, particularly if their names have appeared in the media, are required to undergo a special briefing. Legal sources said that civilian experts are mainly involved in dealing with the issue, rather than the Military Advocate General’s office. Other than its participation in the joint panel, the IDF has officially declined to respond to the allegations in the Goldstone report. The army has decided to leave responses to criticism abroad of its actions to the Foreign Ministry”. This report is posted here .

Soon after that Haaretz published that article, it published another one which in part contradicts the previous one. In the newer story, Haaretz reported that “Military Advocate General Brig. Gen. Avichai Mendelblit Wednesday denounced the United Nations report accusing Israel of war crimes in Gaza as ‘biased’ and said it blatantly overstepped the commission’s mandate. The report, by South African war crimes prosecutor Richard Goldstone, is ‘biased, extremely radical, and has no basis in reality’, Mendelblit said. The full interview with Mendelblit, who is to be promoted to major general Thursday, will appear in Fridays’s Haaretz. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in closed meetings Wednesday that … ‘The report raises the groundless argument that the operation was planned and executed with the intention of harming the civilian population in the [Gaza] strip, and that during the operation, [the Israel Defense Forces] carried out acts intended to punish, hurt and intimidate the population’ … Defense establishment officials said the Goldstone report had other serious deficiencies. One of these was its recognition of Hamas’ ‘right’ to attack Israel [n.b. - it would be hard to find this in the Goldstone report, and is in fact not true] ; another was its statement that Israel continues to act as an occupying force in Gaza. The report also used the evidence presented to the commission selectively and in a biased way, they said: Evidence corroborating Israel’s position or showing illegal Hamas activity was dismissed by the commission as unreliable … At this stage, the IDF is not advising officers who fought in Gaza to avoid visiting certain countries, despite the fear that arrest warrants could be issued against them, an IDF source said. The army will draw conclusions after studying the report and examining international reactions to it, he added. Mendelblit said that since Operation Cast Lead, the IDF has received some 100 complaints from Palestinians, and the Military Police has opened investigations into 23 cases, most of them still ongoing. So far, charges have been pressed against one soldier, who was convicted of looting and sentenced to seven and a half months in prison. ‘Many of the complaints about the IDF’s conduct in the fighting were false alarms, it transpired’, Mendelblit said. ‘There were isolated, irregular incidents during the fighting, but the rule was clear at all ranks and levels: We act according to the principles of international law all the way … When complaints started coming in, people spoke about crimes allegedly directed from above. I reject that out of hand’, he said. We conducted five major inquiries and dozens of smaller ones. We found mistakes, malfunctions, but the instructions and rules were clear to all. A campaign is being waged, partly for ulterior, political motives, in an attempt to make Israel look bad in the world’. Asked about the ‘zero-risk principle’, often cited during and after the fighting, Mendelblit said orders are always to follow the rules of engagement. ‘The criteria are proportionality and distinguishing between combatants and civilians’, he said. ‘The military worth of an offensive must be greater than any collateral damage that could result. Those were the orders to field commanders. I don’t know if a zero-risk principle was talked about in the field, but in meetings where objectives were discussed and approved, no one talked of zero risk. In many cases, our forces did take risks’.” This Haaretz preview of its interview with the Military Advocate General can be viewed here.

Another Haaretz report suggested that “When the smoke of Goldstone’s report clears, the IDF and the government can emerge from the bunker to find that little damage has been done. Israel’s cooperation is needed in the diplomatic arena. After Operation Defensive Shield, Israel succumbed to external pressure and agreed to establish a committee of inquiry headed by U.S. General William Nash on the massacre-that-never-was in Jenin. Only after Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland and UN envoy Terje Roed Larsen intervened was the committee called off. Then, U.S. president George W. Bush preferred to push his diplomatic initiative to establish a Palestinian state. And that is what President Barack Obama will probably do: He will curb the propagandistic trend of slamming Israel for war crimes in order to extract tangible concessions from it as a peace partner”. This article is posted here.

The Associated Press reported that “In Washington, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Wednesday that Goldstone’s mandate from the U.N. Human Rights Council was ‘one-sided’, adding that ‘at an initial reading we have concerns about some of the report’s recommendations’.” This AP report can be read in full here

Tony Karon wrote in Time Magazine that “The [Goldstone] report’s release coincides with a deadlock in the Obama Administration’s efforts to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. U.S. Special Envoy George Mitchell is currently in Israel, struggling to bridge the gap between the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ insistence that he won’t talk to the Israelis unless they halt all construction on territory captured in 1967 (a demand echoed by the U.S.), and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s offer of only a partial freeze that exempts projects already approved and does not apply to East Jerusalem. The Administration had hoped to cajole Abbas and Netanyahu to join Obama for a meeting on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York later this month where they would relaunch direct talks, but right now the differences between the two sides make such an event unlikely. And at least one Israeli commentator, Haaretz’s Aluf Benn, wondered whether Obama might use the help Israel will need in getting Goldstone’s report shelved as leverage on the settlement question. That, too, is highly unlikely for a variety of reasons, including the fact the the Administration may have concluded from Netanyahu’s surge in popularity for resisting Obama’s settlement-freeze demand that publicly holding the conservative Israeli leader’s feet to the fire doesn’t get the desired results”.

In the same article, Time’s Tony Karon also wrote that “despite Israel’s disquiet over losing the battle for international public opinion and growing criticism over its actions in Palestinian territories, the Israeli military is unlikely to do much differently the next time it goes into Gaza … the U.N. report is potentially more damaging, and the fact that its key author is the widely respected Jewish South African Judge Richard Goldstone makes it more difficult to dismiss his work as an anti-Israel smear. Goldstone has ties to Israel and a reputation for honest exploration of politically sensitive subjects built in the course of his work at the head of the his country’s Truth Commission and, later, of the Hague tribunal for war crimes committed in former Yugoslavia. Nevertheless, his report is being read as a smear in the Israeli mainstream … [But] the U.N. report could potentially carry legal consequences. It is scheduled to be discussed on Sept. 28 at the U.N. Human Rights Council, where member countries might seek to have the matter taken up by the Security Council – which can, if it chooses, refer the matter to the International Criminal Court at The Hague. Although political factors make such a course of action highly unlikely at the moment, Israel’s foreign ministry is taking no chances … Although Israel is aware of having lost the Gaza battle in the court of international public opinion – and has warned officers involved in the operation of the danger of arrest in third countries while traveling in their private capacities – the operation enjoyed overwhelming domestic political support. And Israel’s heavy-handed approach in what it called Operation Cast Lead, which inflicted heavy casualties and widespread damage to Gaza’s infrastructure, has been embraced as a model of effectiveness by the Israeli military, because it is seen as having ensured that Israeli forces suffered hardly any casualties while operating against a dangerous guerrilla force in a hostile urban environment. Should Israel deem it necessary to launch a new offensive in Gaza, it’s tactics are likely to be unchanged despite the international criticism”. The Time Magazine article is posted on its website here.

Nevertheless, a Haaretz editorial said that “The report by the commission headed by Judge Richard Goldstone on Operation Cast Lead in Gaza is one of the most serious indictments ever made against the government and the military in Israel. The report states that during the operation Israel committed war crimes and significant violations of international law. The commission went so far as to accuse Israel of crimes against humanity. According to the report, the operation was intended to punish the civilian Palestinian population with the intentional use of disproportional force. As a result, they wrote, 1,400 people were killed in Gaza and thousands were left without a roof over their heads or a livelihood. As could be expected following the government’s decision to boycott the commission of inquiry, official Israel chose to defend itself with an all-out attack on the document and its authors. Although the report states that the operation had been preceded by the intentional firing of rockets at civilian targets in Israel – which it also describes as a war crime, and perhaps even a crime against humanity – and also notes the improper conduct on the part of Gilad Shalit’s kidnappers, the government spokesmen accused the commission of ignoring the circumstances which led to the offensive in the Gaza Strip and said they encouraged terror. The government hopes friendly countries, led by the United States, will stand by Israel in the battle to undermine the credibility of the report and will thwart the threat that it will become a legal indictment in the International Criminal Court in the Hague. But even if the legal threat is lifted via diplomatic means, the best of those offering explanations will find it difficult to invalidate the findings of the Goldstone Commission – which analyzed dozens of incidents, interviewed 188 people and reviewed thousands of documents. Moreover, a good deal of the findings are consistent with a number of reports filed by voluntary groups, which pointed out violations of the rules of warfare and of human rights during the fighting and the prolonged siege of the Strip. The cloud of Cast Lead will not dissipate on its own. Israel benefited from the decision to appoint a commission of inquiry following the Sabra and Chatila massacre that occurred during the first Lebanon war. Instead of a futile attempt to reject the report and undermine the legitimacy of the Goldstone Commission, the government would do better to establish a state commission of inquiry to thoroughly investigate the serious accusations that were placed this week on Israel’s doorstep. Such a step could prevent a more severe entanglement”. This editorial is published
here .

And Haaretz’s Amira Hass wrote in Haaretz on Thursday that “There is only thing worse than denial [of the accusations made in the Goldstone report] – the admission that the IDF indeed acted as has been described, but that these actions are both normal and appropriate”.

Hass reported that in response to an account she wrote for Haaretz last week, “On Friday an Israel Defense Forces soldier called to protest the publication of another story in Haaretz which in his words, tainted not only the troops’ image but also his Sabbath day. The soldier was referring to Gaza resident Zinat Samouni’s account of how soldiers killed her 46-year-old husband and their 4-year-old son Ahmed – just two of the 29 people of the same family the army killed between January 4 and 5.
The soldier, who said he participated in the fighting, said he didn’t believe the women’s statements were true, though he did believe soldiers ’scrawled stupid things on the walls, and that’s really not right’. This is a common Israeli solution – in this case, to admit to the graffiti’s existence, but downplay its seriousness or view it as everyday Israeli high jinks. Everything else can be denied. It can always be said that photographs of civilians killed were fabricated. The Palestinians’ accounts can be dismissed as lies, intrigues of Hamas, embellishment or, at best, facts taken out of context since Gazans are, after all, afraid of what Hamas would do to them if they told the truth.
Jurists will argue over the meaning of international law and will suggest contradicting analyses. Politicians will justifiably note that the United States does not have commissions of inquiry thrust upon it by the United Nations. Others will say that if Judge Richard Goldstone was reliable enough to be a prosecutor in the International Criminal Court cases on Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and his Pakistani colleague Hina Jilani was fit to participate in the international investigation into Darfur, there is no reason to suddenly cast doubt on their credentials now that they are examining Israel’s deeds in Gaza. [But] The Goldstone Commission’s findings are in line with what anyone who didn’t shut his or her eyes and ears to witness testimony already knows. B’Tselem, Breaking the Silence, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Haaretz and the international media – to Israelis, these have all fallen into the trash bin of the mendacious Palestinians. In the best case, they have become trapped in their own pure-hearted naivete, and in the worst, into collaborating with efforts to besmirch Israel and bolster prejudices against it … Israel struck a civilian population that remains under its control, it didn’t fulfill its obligation to distinguish between civilians and militants and used military force disproportionate with the tangible threat to its own civilians. Air Force drones and helicopters fired deadly missiles at civilians, many of them children; the Tank Corps and Navy shelled civilian neighborhoods with weapons not designed for precision strikes; soldiers received orders to fire on rescue crews; others fired on civilians carrying white flags; and others killed people in or near their homes. Troops used Gazans as human shields, soldiers detained civilians in abusive conditions, the army used white phosphorus shells in dense civilian areas and, on the eve of withdrawing, destroyed wide residential, industrial and agricultural areas. There is only thing worse than denial – the admission that the IDF indeed acted as has been described, but that these actions are both normal and appropriate”. Today’s Amira Hass article is published here .

Goldstone himself is urging that Israel simply launch its own investigation. Ma’an News Agency in Bethlehem reported that in a telephone interview with Goldstone on Tuesday, the day the report was released, Goldstone indicated that “despite its outrage, Israel has not disputed any single allegation” in the report: ” ‘There hasn’t been any attempt thus far to deal with the contents of the report at all’, insisted the former South African justice … Goldstone, an expert on international law and the laws of war, was chief UN prosecutor for the Yugoslavia and Rwanda post-conflict international criminal tribunals in the early 1990s, and later chaired the international independent panel on Kosovo … Goldstone explained over the phone on Tuesday [that] Israeli spokespersons and ministers attacked the report as a concept and criticized its authors just minutes after receiving the document, and despite that it totaled nearly 600 pages … However Goldstone dismissed those and other denunciations from Israeli officials, particularly remarks alleging bias by the prime minister’s spokesman, Mark Regev, which he ‘found disappointing because it sounds to me like he hadn’t read the report … I certainly have every confidence that any reasonable person would regard the report as being even-handed, and looking into all relevant allegations on all sides’, Goldstone said, countering continuous allegations that he set out to blame Israel from the beginning. ‘I think that’s for objective people to judge’, he added, before moving on to one of the more bizarre allegations distributed by the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday, that Hamas officials joined his team throughout its investigation in Gaza. ‘You know, this allegation keeps being made’, Goldstone said, even though his report accused Hamas in unmistakably clear language of war crimes and crimes against humanity for its targeting of Israeli civilian population centers. ‘It is absolutely without any truth at all’. Israel’s Foreign Ministry had claimed that ‘at every stage of their visit to Gaza the Mission members were accompanied by Hamas representatives’, citing unspecified Palestinian media reports. However Goldstone insisted that ‘Hamas didn’t follow us at all’, much less ‘at every stage’ of the visit. ‘They were nowhere near any of the interviews we held, and there was just no question; there was no issue’. He added, ‘Had they attempted in any way to do that, I would have found that objectionable and I would not have accepted it – but it just didn’t happen’. Although he said Hamas never tried to harm the investigation, Israel refused to cooperate with the UN mission, forcing Goldstone and his team to enter the besieged coastal strip via Egypt’s crossing, and forcing Israeli victims to testify in Geneva”.

The Ma’an account of its telephone interview with Goldstone added that he also denied a claim made in a statement sent out from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) by email [that was also received by this correspondentl], which said that because of its “one-sided” mandate, “many distinguished individuals who were asked to head the Mission refused … One of them was [former Irish president] Mary Robinson” As Ma’an noted, “the former high commissioner for human rights [has often been] the target of Israel’s ire,” But, Ma’an reported, Goldstone said that “The mandate Mary Robinson refused was not the mandate I accepted”. Ma’an added that Goldstone told them “the fact-finding mission’s mandate was changed, before the team began” This Ma’an report can be found here

Meanwhile, in a development announced today by a group of Israeli human rights organizations, led by GISHA, ” [Col. Moshe Levi] head of the [Gaza] DCO [the Israeli military's District Coordination Office] informed the Israeli organizations that from now on, IDF officials will no longer provide replies and updates regarding their clients, and the organizations must contact a foreign, non-Israeli body – the Palestinian Civil Affairs Committee – with the request that it forward their application to the IDF. The organizations expressed concern that this refusal will seriously impede the work of Israeli human rights organizations – and that Gaza residents with urgent humanitarian needs will pay the price. Human rights organizations, which assist thousands of Palestinians seeking to exit or enter the Gaza Strip for various reasons, serve in many cases as the only option of representation available to residents. Since a Palestinian resident of the Gaza Strip cannot approach the Israeli authorities directly, and since the Gaza DCO is the only body authorized to grant applications, the sole avenue open to such residents hoping to receive a response or to expedite the handling of their applications is via human rights organizations … In the case of Mu’tasem Billah Abu-Mastfa, a nine-month-old baby suffering from severe congenital heart defects: He has four holes in his heart, which is located on the right side of his chest … his doctors referred him for treatment at Sheba Hospital at Tel Hashomer, Israel , where he was expected on September 13, 2009. On August 28, 2009, his family submitted an application to the Israeli-run Gaza DCO, via the Palestinian Civil Affairs Committee, to coordinate his exit from Gaza, but they have yet to receive a reply from the Gaza DCO, and therefore the baby has been prevented from traveling to receive medical treatment. Due to the IDF’s new policy of refusing to respond to applications made by human rights organizations, there is no way of finding out the reason for the delay or to expedite the handling of this urgent application. This is only one example of many. The Palestinian Civil Affairs Committee has no power to issue permits or to allow passage, since the IDF controls Erez Crossing. The organizations expressed surprise at the notice of refusal in light of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories’ declarations that part of the DCO’s function is to respond to applications from Israeli human rights organizations. Recently the head of the DCO, Col. Moshe Levi, made contact with one of the organizations to propose a meeting in order to improve its work with the DCO and stated that the DCO exists “for the humanitarian niche,” i.e. for the Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip who have been subject to the closure for more than two years. Now, just two months later, Col. Levi sent this letter to notify the human rights organizations of the immediate severance of contacts”. Though the Col. Moshe Levi’s letter was dated 13 September, two days before the Goldstone report was formally issued, the severance of ties and contacts that it reports went into effect on 15 September, the date the report was released. The Israeli human rights groups who signed the letter are: Gisha, HaMoked, Physicians for Human Rights – Israel , Association for Civil Rights in Israel , Adalah, Public Committee Against Torture in Israel , Rabbis for Human Rights, Yesh Din.

And, in another development, there is a new UN Environmental Program report that was released Tuesday, stating that “The water supply in the Gaza Strip is on the very of collapse due to pollution that has been worsened by damage to infrastructure during Operation Cast Lead … Sewage contamination of the water table far exceeds allowable levels set by the World Health Organization, the report states. The UN report notes that it will take more than 20 years and a billion dollars to rehabilitate the water system in Gaza. The report, based on a visit by representatives of the United Nations Environmental Program to Gaza in May, says that nearly one-fifth of the
greenhouses in Gaza were destroyed in the war in Gaza. The movement of tanks caused long-term damage to the ground that will impede cultivation. Damage to sewage facilities apparently led to waste water penetrating the aquifer … The report recommends seeking alternative water sources as soon as possible for Gaza, including desalinated sea water. Gaza’s population faces severe health problems due to the decline in drinking-water quality”… This is reported today in Haaretz here.

The BBC reported, on September, that “The UN and international aid agencies say Israel must relax its blockade of the Gaza Strip to allow urgent repairs to the water and sewage systems. In a joint appeal, the bodies say the hazards to health and the environment threaten not only Gaza but Israel too. More than 13m gallons (50m litres) of raw or partially treated sewage flows into the sea every day from Gaza because of a lack of treatment plants. The cross-border aquifer is low and raw sewage floats back to Gaza and Israel. The UN says about 10,000 Gazans [still] have no access to a water network – while about 60% of the 1.4m population receive water only intermittently. Water consumption in the Strip is less than a third of that of Israelis living just a few kilometres away. Israel, and Egypt on its south-western side, have kept Gaza largely sealed since a violent takeover of the territory by the Islamic militant Hamas group in 2007 … ‘The deterioration and breakdown of water and sanitation facilities in Gaza is compounding an already severe and protracted denial of human dignity in the Gaza Strip’, said UN humanitarian co-ordinator in the Palestinian territories, Maxwell Gaylard. Mr Gaylard and other humanitarian workers and officials launched the appeal with a news conference near one of northern Gaza’s sewage lagoons to highlight the problem. In 2007, one of the lagoons overflowed and five people were killed by a flash flood of sewage. Aid agencies said Israel’s bombardment in December and January worsened an already bad situation. Israeli officials had no immediate comment to the appeal on Thursday”. The BBC report is posted here.

Filed under: Environment, Gaza, Human Rights, International Humanitarian Law, International Law, International Tribunals, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians, Sanctions