A R C H I V E S
Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board
| The Appalling Loss of Humanity |
|---|
| sofia |
| 08/05/03 at 10:52:47 |
| THE APPALLING LOSS OF HUMANITY 15 June 2003 | Gideon Levy | Haaretz Last Monday, attorney Leah Tsemel wanted to give some photographs to her client, who was standing a few meters from her in the military courtroom at the Ofer base near Ramallah. The photographs were of Quds, the firstborn son of administrative detainee Abed al-Ahmar, who is being held in custody without trial. Quds was born two months ago, while his father was in military custody. Military judge Major Ronen Atzmon refused to allow the photos to be passed to al-Ahmar, who has never seen his child. Atzmon was unwilling to assume the security responsibility for such a move. This incident may seem trivial in view of the mutual bloodbath of the past few days, but it is precisely these minor events that show the level of cruelty that the Israeli occupation has reached. The story of our moral deterioration is to be found here, no less than in the acts of killing. Al-Ahmar cant see his newborn son because family visits to security prisoners were banned three years ago and have not been reinstated. The fact that his wife is a Jewish Israeli is of no help. Thousands of Palestinian prisoners and detainees have been totally cut off from their families for three years without a telephone call or a visit. There are not many regimes in the world that treat their prisoners this way. Last week, al-Ahmars administrative detention was extended for another six months for the 17th time (not consecutively); he is one of about 1,000 detainees being held today without trial. It has to be said again that, if the defense establishment has any material against al-Ahmar and the other administrative detainees, it must put them on trial. If not, they must be set free. "Instead of apologizing for not letting me see my son, they wont even let me have the photographs. I never believed things would come to this," al-Ahmar said on the weekend in a telephone call from prison. "Do you know what I felt when the judge refused to let me have the photos? That I am living in the age of slavery, when children were taken from their fathers as soon as they were born." Still, al-Ahmars fate is better than that of Asmaa Abu al-Haija, a 37-year-old woman from the Jenin refugee camp. She, too, is being held in prison without trial; no one, including her lawyer Tamar Peleg, knows why. Meanwhile, her five children are abandoned in the refugee camp. Their father and older brother are also in prison, having been convicted of being Hamas members. Al-Haija has a tumor in her head, which gives her headaches and a partial loss of vision. According to recent testimonies from Neve Tirza womens prison, she sleeps on the floor because the blinding headaches make it impossible for her to sleep in the bunk bed in her cell. Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) says the prison authorities have so far denied her medical treatment of any kind. An urgent request submitted by the groups Michal Bar-Or to the head of the Prison Services health department, Dr. Alex Adler, to give al-Haija a CT test at the urging of her Palestinian doctor, went unanswered for weeks, until a "prisoners petition" was filed. A Prisons Service spokeswoman, Hanna Nitzan, said in response that the prisoner was examined and is receiving medical treatment. Al-Haijas lawyer said the arrest warrant issued against her by the military commander of the region referred to the prisoner as a male: "He is endangering the security of the region." No one bothered to change the standard text. But the cruelest aspect of al-Haijas story is that she is not allowed to phone her five children, the youngest of whom is a 6-year-old girl. Five children remain without a father and a mother, and it does not even occur to the prison authorities, in view of the harsh family circumstances, to consider the possibility to depart from the regulations prohibiting security prisoners from making phone calls. The official response: "The security prisoner is denied telephone calls because of a procedure that applies to all the security prisoners in Israel." Has no one seen fit to show a modicum of compassion, at least for the children who have been left without their parents and without a house, which was destroyed by missiles in an IDF operation? A state that prevents a prisoner who has been held in custody for years without trial from receiving photographs of a son he has never seen? That prevents a woman who is under detention without trial from phoning her children, whose father and brother are also in prison? We are even capable of this. This has nothing to do with the war against terrorism. The battle against the murderous terrorist attacks cannot justify such behavior. Even at a time when Hamas is perpetrating horrific suicide bombings, Israel is liquidating people and everything is going up in flames, we must not ignore what appear to be relatively small-scale incidents that reflect such appalling loss of humanity. 15 June 2003 | Gideon Levy | Haaretz |
| NS |
| Re: The Appalling Loss of Humanity |
|---|
| sofia |
| 08/07/03 at 14:17:55 |
| Israel's Lethal Weapon of Choice As Assassinations of Militants Increase, Citizens' Uneasiness Grows By Molly Moore Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, June 29, 2003 JERUSALEM -- Nazih Abu Sibaa, 35, died seconds after he opened the trunk of his booby-trapped car. Abdel Rahman Hamad, 33, was shot dead by a sniper as he sat on his roof reading the Koran. Mohammad Abayat, 27, was killed when he picked up the receiver of a pay phone that blew up outside a hospital where he was visiting his sick mother. All three men, whose deaths were described by witnesses and Palestinian officials, were suspected Palestinian militants marked for assassination -- one of Israel's primary weapons in its effort to curb suicide bombings and other attacks against Israelis. These "targeted killings," as they are known here, were described by Israeli officials two years ago as "rare and exceptional" measures. But now they are carried out with regularity, using missiles, bombs, tanks, booby traps and gunfire, and they are stirring increasing disapproval from the Israeli public. Their frequency increased as Palestinian militants sent a wave of suicide bombers to attack Israelis, intensifying the level of violence in the 33-month-long Palestinian uprising, in which approximately 2,950 people have been killed. The number of suspected Palestinian militants tracked and killed by Israel more than doubled from 35 in 2001 to 72 last year. The toll of civilian bystanders and others killed who were not intended targets of the missions increased 2 1/2 times during the same period, according to studies of the cases by The Washington Post, which were based partly on research by two Israeli human rights groups, B'Tselem and the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel; and three Palestinian organizations, the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment (known by its Arabic acronym, LAW), the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. The figures exclude incidents that were not targeted killings -- such as gunfights, street fights or other shootings that appeared to be random -- or in which suspected militants were killed during general arrests or military operations. According to the data, Israeli military forces and undercover operations teams have killed at least 249 Palestinians during targeted attacks since the fall of 2000. Of that total, 149 were the targets and 100 were civilians or, in some cases, bodyguards or members of militant groups who were not the primary targets. Slightly more than one of every 10 Palestinians who has died in the conflict was killed during a targeted killing operation, the data show. "Targeted killing is not only very valuable," Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland, chief of planning and policy in the Israeli military and one its most senior officers, said in a recent interview. "If we could not use this method in areas like Gaza, where we do not control the territory . . . we could not fight effectively against terrorist groups." "In 2003, the main weapon the Israeli army has in its arsenal against terrorism is the assassination policy," said Michael Sfard, a Tel Aviv attorney representing LAW and the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, which are challenging the policy as a violation of international law and human rights standards in a suit now before the Israeli Supreme Court. "Today we execute people without trial. It's so simple. That's what we're doing. No one shows evidence to anyone." 'New Rules' of the Conflict Israel's increased use of targeted killings, and the civilian deaths that have accompanied them, has sharpened debate here on a critical question: Should a Jewish state that describes itself as the only true democracy in the Middle East refrain from conducting assassinations, or does Palestinian use of suicide bombers to attack Israelis in cafes and on buses justify extreme measures to protect Israeli citizens? "Terrorism has introduced new rules into the game," said Yaron Ezrahi, a Hebrew University professor and one of Israel's leading political scientists and philosophers, "and therefore the situation for a state like Israel, and the United States, is how to maintain its constitutionality in the face of terror." Today in Israel, he said, "what we're seeing is a process of erosion of democratic norms." Although Israelis have suffered more than 2 1/2 years of suicide bombings and other attacks, Israeli society is becoming increasingly opposed to the tactic of assassination. In a recent public opinion poll by the daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, large numbers of Israelis who were questioned expressed doubts about both the tactics and the motives of such operations. A majority of Israelis polled -- 58 percent -- said the military should at least temporarily discontinue targeted killings. Two of every five Israelis polled said they believed the government had used targeted killings to sabotage a new, U.S.-backed peace process. Israel's policy of targeted killings has become one of the most divisive issues in the debate over a U.S.-backed peace plan known as the "road map." Palestinian militant leaders have said they will honor a cease-fire agreement with Israel only if the practice is ended. Israelis have insisted that they reserve the right to go after militants that they consider imminent threats if Palestinian security forces don't detain them or prevent the attack after being advised about it. The United States, which last year killed suspected al Qaeda operatives in Yemen using a Hellfire missile fired from a remote-controlled Predator aircraft, has criticized Israel's policy of assassinations as "unhelpful" to the peace effort but has not issued strong condemnations. In deference to Israel's arguments that assassinations are necessary to prevent terrorist attacks, the United States reportedly has pushed Israeli officials to limit their targets to "ticking bombs" -- individuals who can be tied to impending threats -- though critics argue that such limits are open to broad interpretation. History of Assassination In the spring of 1973, a group of Israeli commandos guided a speedboat up the Mediterranean coast and scrambled ashore in Beirut. Their covert mission: to assassinate three of the Palestine Liberation Organization's top officials in their downtown apartments. The leader of the team, Ehud Barak, commander of Israel's special forces, wore a long, dark wig, false breasts and women's clothing. He and his men gunned down all three targets, according to accounts confirmed by Barak, who later became Israel's prime minister. Israel's history of assassinations stretches back decades. In the early 1970s, prominent members of Palestinian organizations were killed in rocket attacks and car bomb explosions in Lebanon. Prime Minister Golda Meir authorized hit squads to locate and kill members of the Black September cell responsible for the kidnapping and murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Israeli undercover squads, dressed as Arabs, hunted down suspected militants in the Palestinian territories during the first uprising, or intifada, from 1987 to 1993. In the fall of 2000, as the second intifada began, Barak was prime minister and authorized security forces to assassinate Palestinian militants suspected of planning or conducting attacks against Israelis. Just before noon on Nov. 9 of that year, Hussein Abayat, a 37-year-old father of four, was driving his gray Mitsubishi through the West Bank village of Beit Sahur on the eastern edge of Bethlehem when antitank missiles fired by Israeli gunships slammed into his car. Neighbors found his charred body melted to the driver's seat. Two women, Aziza Jubran, 58, and Rahma Hindi, 54, who had been standing on the roadside, also died, their bodies burned black by the missiles. Abayat, identified by Israelis as an activist with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement who allegedly organized shooting attacks on the nearby Jewish community of Gilo, became the first known targeted killing of the current conflict. After the hit, Barak vowed to "continue with such operations." As the intifada intensified under Barak's successor, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the military's reliance on assassinations and the scope of the targets expanded, buttressed by advances in intelligence gathering and adaptations of high-technology military equipment and weaponry. The Israeli government has not released official data on targeted killings. In some cases, the government says Palestinians were killed because Israeli security forces had to fire in self-defense. Details about evidence gathered by Israel on suspects, and facts about the decision to assassinate them, usually remain secret after the attacks. In carrying out the targeted killings, Israeli forces have lifted some of their tactics from the murky world of covert operations and integrated them into the daily missions of regular troops. Frequently, several types of security units participate in a single operation: The mission will be directed by Shin Bet, the country's civilian security agency, with military commandos providing the muscle and army tanks and air force helicopters supplying the firepower. In an example of such a coordinated hit, three suspected Islamic Jihad militants driving on an isolated road north of the West Bank city of Jenin last October were ambushed by eight undercover Israeli operatives, four armored personnel carriers and three helicopters. Two of the suspects were killed. Palestinian hospital officials said one of the men, Wassim Ahmed Sabana, 23, was shot seven times. Israeli security officials later said intelligence reports indicated the men were en route to a suicide bombing inside Israel. Other missions have relied more on finesse. In 16 known incidents, Israeli operatives or Palestinian agents cooperating with Israelis have planted explosive devices in telephone booths, cars and other locations where they were detonated by remote control, sometimes from unmanned drones or helicopters. Because such operations are often carried out in secret by security services, Israeli officials usually deny involvement and attribute the explosions to accidents caused by Palestinians building or carrying explosive devices that detonated prematurely. Military officials said they used targeted killings when they were unable to arrest the wanted militant, which officials said was always their first choice. But human rights officials argue that Israel has made thousands of arrests under difficult circumstances since the intifada began, challenging the claim that some targets must be killed rather than arrested. Israeli officials say the justification for targeted killings is self-defense: "a means to prevent in-progress and future terrorist attacks that will kill Israeli civilians," according to court documents recently filed to the Israeli Supreme Court by the Israeli government in response to the human rights groups' suit. Human rights officials argue, however, that the practice of targeted killings is a denial of due process in a country that grants its own citizens accused of crimes extensive judicial rights and does not have a death penalty. Increasingly, in the past two years, proposed operations have been screened by military lawyers. The most important targets are sent to Sharon for approval, according to civilian and military officials. "Did we make some mistakes?" the military's Eiland said. "Yes. Did we sometimes miss the target? Yes. Did we sometimes cause collateral damage? Yes." But he also said operations have been delayed or canceled "hundreds of times" because of concerns over civilian casualties and other factors. Unintended Victims Abdel Aziz Rantisi said he never heard the helicopters coming. He didn't realize a missile had slammed through the engine block of his car until the blue Mitsubishi filled with white smoke. "It took me three seconds to realize we were being targeted," said Rantisi, 60, one of the most senior and most strident Gaza leaders of the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, "and I started to think, 'How are we going to survive the second rocket?' " He leaped out a back door and his 19-year-old son, Ahmed, who was driving, crawled out a window. As the car rolled into a nearby intersection, AH-64 Apache gunships spit five more missiles at it. Amal Jarosheh, 8, was standing in the gate leading to her family's house a few feet away when the first missile punched through the hood of the Rantisi car at 11:50 a.m. on June 10. "I gave her some money to buy candy," said her father, Nimer Jarosheh, 46, a mechanic. "She never got a chance to eat it." Rantisi, the target, survived the operation. But five other people, including Amal, died from their wounds. "The thing that makes me angry is they mean to kill as many people as they can," Rantisi, still nursing a leg injury from the attack, said in an interview in Gaza City. "Their assassinations all occur in very crowded areas. This was one of the most crowded areas of Gaza. "I'm sure I was monitored and observed from the time I left my house. They could have tried to assassinate me in a place that was not crowded and avoided spilling civilian blood." About one-third of all the suspected militants killed in targeted assassinations have been hit with missiles fired from aircraft and, in one case, a 2,000-pound bomb dropped by an F-16 fighter plane. But more than two-thirds of all unintended victims were killed in these airstrikes, making them the most controversial of the targeted killings. "Israel fails to apply the principle of proportionality," said Donatella Rovera, who monitors Israeli and Palestinian human rights issues for Amnesty International, the London-based rights group. "So many bystanders have been killed in pursuit of this policy." The largest number of fatalities occurred last July when an Israeli fighter jet dropped a one-ton bomb on a house in a central Gaza City neighborhood where concrete apartment buildings are packed together. The target was Salah Shehada, the founder and leader of Hamas's militant wing in Gaza. He was killed. So were 14 other people, including Shehada's wife. While the international backlash over the bombing did not surprise Israeli officials, they were stunned by the reaction from their own public. "The bomb in Gaza that killed 14 innocent people left a very profound impact on Israelis," said Ezrahi, the Israeli political scientist. "There is a certain kind of agonizing over events where there is killing of civilians." After the attempted assassination of Rantisi, public opinion responded even more severely, according to the newspaper poll that showed 40 percent of those questioned believed the attack was an attempt to disrupt the peace initiative. Though Israeli officials defended the targeting of Shehada and Rantisi, both had prompted vociferous debates within the military and intelligence communities before they were carried out, according to military officials. In the case of Shehada, some officers argued that more precise missiles, rather than a one-ton bomb, should have been used. But Shehada had escaped a previous assassination attempt and had shown an ability to outwit Israeli security forces, according to Eiland. "We didn't know exactly where he would be inside the house," Eiland said. "If we attacked him with a helicopter [using a missile], the probability that we would kill him was considered too low." The military has not used an air-dropped bomb in a targeted killing attempt since the Shehada bombing. The attempted killing of Rantisi was also vigorously debated within the government. Many officials, including one of the country's top military and intelligence officials, believed it would be too provocative at a time when the United States was attempting to launch a new Middle East peace process. Final authorization for targeting Rantisi came from Sharon, according to Israeli officials. [i]Correspondent John Ward Anderson and researcher Islam Abdelkarim in Gaza City and researchers Hillary Claussen and Ian Dietch in Jerusalem contributed to this report.[/i] © 2003 The Washington Post Company |
| Re: The Appalling Loss of Humanity |
|---|
| sofia |
| 08/07/03 at 14:18:51 |
| The Separation Barrier: Phase One Completed - Hundreds of Thousands Palestinians Directly Harmed Articles from http://www.btselem.org/ In June 2002, the Israeli government decided to build a separation barrier between Israel and the West Bank that will prevent the uncontrolled entry of Palestinians into Israel. The government's decision calls for construction of a barrier around the entire West Bank. To date, the government has approved the construction of Stages 1 and 2 of the barrier, a total of 190 kilometers. The route of Stage 1 covers 145 km: 125 km from Sallem, which lies within the Green Line, in the north, to the Elqana settlement in the south. Another 20 kilometers, which run along the northern and southern boundaries of the Jerusalem Municipality, are part of the "Jerusalem envelope." Israel has constructed about 40 km of the barrier, in the section south of Sallem. On 31 July 2003, the Ministry of Defense annouced that the construction of Phase 1 of the barrier has been completed. In addition to the main barrier, Israel is planning subsidiary barriers, referred to as depth barriers, in three areas along the route of Stage 1. In some of the areas in which depth barriers are planned, Israel has already taken control of private Palestinian land, but construction has not yet begun. Stage 2 extends 45 km from Sallem to Teysar, which borders the Jordan Valley. Thirty kilometers of this stretch are currently under construction, from Sallem eastward. The Ministry of Defense states that this section will be completed by the end of this year. According to media reports, the Ministry of Defense has completed the planning for Stage 3, which will run from Elqana to the Dead Sea. The route protrudes further into West Bank land than the previously planned stages, with most Israeli settlements lying west of the planned barrier. Prime Minister Sharon has approved this route in principle and it is expected that the government will approve it. Based on statements by the prime minister and by Minister of Defense Mofaz, the fourth stage of the barrier will run between the Jordan Valley from the Palestinians living on the mountain ridge. The Ministry of Defense has not yet completed its planning for this section. However, the route of the eastern section of Stage 2, which runs from al-Mutila to Teysar, reinforces the belief that Israel indeed intends to extend the barrier southward, thus separating the Jordan Valley from the rest of the West Bank. Most of the barrier's route in Stage 1 is located within the West Bank. As a result, the barrier along this part of the route will infringe the human rights of more than 210,000 Palestinians who live in 67 towns and villages: 13 communities, containing 11,700 residents, will become enclaves trapped between the barrier and the Green Line; the barrier's winding route and the additional barrier (the depth barrier) east of the separation barrier will turn 19 other villages, in which 128,500 Palestinians live, into enclaves; 36 villages situated east of the separation barrier or depth barrier, containing 72,200 residents, will be separated from a substantial part of their farmland, which lies west of the barriers. Israel has promised to set up crossing points along the barrier route. The state indicated that it would provide “special permits” to residents harmed by the barrier that will enable them to pass through the crossing points. Even assuming that all planned crossing points are established – which is doubtful – Palestinians in these areas will be totally dependent on Israel's defense establishment. In the past, Israel has relied on extraneous reasons, and not just security considerations, to restrict the movement of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories to achieve unlawful objectives. It is likely that Israel will act in similar manner in regard to the crossing points. The restrictions on freedom of movement will severely harm thousands of Palestinians by making it difficult for them to reach their farmland and market their products elsewhere in the West Bank. The separation barrier will also significantly impair access of Palestinian villagers to hospitals in Tulkarm, Qalqiliya, and East Jerusalem, which will be isolated from the rest of the West Bank. The barrier will also affect the educational system in the West Bank: many schools, primarily village schools, rely on teachers who come from outside the village, and the route of the barrier lies between the homes of many teachers and the schools in which they teach. --------------- Excerpts of testimonies of Minors Totured by the Police http://www.btselem.org/ From the testimony of Ibrahim Za'ul, 16: They brought me to another room. Inside was an officer who identified himself as "Ayub." He said that he is a merciless person and is ready to kill me if I don't tell him the name of the youths who threw stones... Another guy opened the door and said in Arabic that Ahmad 'Aref Sabatin had died during interrogation. The officer turned to me and said, "What are we going to do with the body of Ahmad Sabatin, what do you say Ibrahim, what do you think? Do you want to change places with Ahmad? [...] I was blindfolded. The interrogator said that he was going to electrocute me and that I would die like Ahmad. I felt the sensation of two iron wires being stuck on me, but nothing happened... I was taken to the room where Ahmad Sabatin was. The interrogators began to beat him right in front of me. Ahmad began to cry and scream at the top of his voice. I asked them to stop because Ahmad did not throw stones, and I told them that I was ready to confess that I threw stones. From the testimony of Isma'il Sabatin, 17: The interrogators ordered me to get into a position with my legs up and my head down while I was leaning on the wall. They left the room and ordered me to stay there until they returned. Later, they stood me on a chair and told me to grab a pipe that was fixed to the wall. They removed the chair from under me and left me hanging in the air, with my handcuffed hands holding onto the pipe and the weight of my body, hanging in the air, drawing my hands downwards. They left the room. From the testimony of Sultan Mahdi, 15: The soldiers took me to a room and sat me down on a chair. One of them took off the handcuffs and tied my hands and feet to the chair's legs.... They asked if I threw stones at army vehicles on the main road. At first, I denied that I did. But two or three of them started to beat me in the face and head. The interrogation lasted for around five hours... At the end, they took me to the bathroom near the interrogation room. One of the interrogators grabbed me by the hair and put my head in the toilet. I was frightened. When they took me back to the interrogation room, I decided to confess. I told them that I threw five stones at a settler's vehicle. They wrote up a detailed testimony and forced me to sign it. From the testimony of Muhammad Sabatin, 14: Four policemen took me, searched me, beat me in front of my parents and ordered them to get out immediately. A strong, dark-skinned man of average height who was dressed in civilian clothes arrived. He beat me with great force, kicked me for about five minutes, and put me in a room where four policemen were seated... Two of the policemen bound my hands and feet, blindfolded me, and took me to a room that I couldn't see. The four of them took turns beating me for around four hours. They struck me with a mop stick, kicked me all over my body, and swore at me in filthy language. ----- The Water Crisis in the Occupied Territories Israel's citizens, like those of developed countries worldwide, benefit year-round from unlimited running water to meet their household needs. On the other hand, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians suffer from a severe water shortage throughout the summer. This shortage of water affects every function that water plays in human life: drinking, bathing, cleaning, and watering of crops and animals. The shortage drastically affects the residents' health and economic well-being. The shortage of drinking water can cause dehydration and the inability to maintain proper hygiene and thus lead to illness. Failure to water crops and animals affects the livelihood of the residents. The water shortage violates the basic human rights of Palestinian residents of the Occupied Territories such as the right to health, to adequate housing, to equality, and to benefit from their natural resources. This harm results from Israeli policy, in effect since 1967, based on an unfair division of resources shared by Israel and the Palestinians. |
Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board |