Israel troops admit Gaza abuses
BBC / ?
19-Mar-2009 (6 comments)

An Israeli military college has printed damning soldiers' accounts of the killing of civilians and vandalism during
recent operations in Gaza.

One account tells of a sniper killing a mother and children at close range whom troops had told to leave their home.

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Mehdi Mazloom

Will the same "Joke" come from IRI?

by Mehdi Mazloom on

So according to your thesis. Israelis are damn if they do (investigate).  Damn if the don't (investigate).

I probably would have forward you some credence had we seen the same "joke" coming out of IRI land, as well as other Arab countries.

(pass on the stone, the woman half buried in the ground over there is still alive).


capt_ayhab

shooting and crying

by capt_ayhab on

//www.reuters.com/article/featuredCrisis/idUS...

JERUSALEM, March 20 (Reuters) - Rabbis in the Israeli army told
battlefield troops in January's Gaza offensive that they were fighting
a "religious war" against gentiles, according to one army commander's
account published on Friday.

"Their message was very clear: we
are the Jewish people, we came to this land by a miracle, God brought
us back to this land and now we need to fight to expel the gentiles who
are interfering with our conquest of this holy land," he said.

The account by Ram, a pseudonym to shield the soldier's identity, was
published by the left-leaning Haaretz newspaper in the second day of
revelations that have rocked the Israeli military. (www.haaretz.com
"Shooting and Crying, 2009").

They were leaked from a Feb 13
meeting of armed forces members to share their Gaza experiences. Some
veterans, alumni of an Israel Defence Force (IDF) military academy,
told of the killing of civilians and their impression that deep
contempt for Palestinians pervaded the ranks of the Israeli forces.

The institution's director, Danny Zamir, confirmed that Thursday's published accounts were authentic.

In longer excerpts in its Friday "Week's End" edition, the daily quoted
'Ram' as saying his impression of the 22-day operation was "the feeling
of an almost religious mission".

It began when a devout
sergeant in his unit "assembled the whole platoon and led the prayer
for those going into battle", he said. "Also when we were inside they
sent in those booklets full of Psalms, a ton of Psalms. I think the
house I was in for a week, we could have filled a room with the Psalms
they sent."

The officer felt there was a "huge gap between what the Education Corps sent out and what the IDF rabbinate sent out".

The corps distributed pamphlets about the history of Israel's fighting in Gaza from 1948 to the present, he said.

But the rabbinate's message imparted to many soldiers the sense that "this operation was a religious war".

"ALL TERRORISTS"

A squad commander from Ram's Givat Brigade, named as Aviv, recounted
his misgivings about orders to break down doors with armoured vehicles
and shoot anyone inside, floor by floor. In the event, the order was
amended to include "operating megaphones" so advancing troops could
tell people they had five minutes to get out or be killed.

Aviv
said "there was a very annoying moment" when he briefed his men and one
challenged that order, saying: "Yeah? Anyone who is in there is a
terrorist, that's a known fact..."

"And then his buddies join
in: 'We need to murder any person who's in there, yeah, any person
who's in Gaza is a terrorist' and all the other things that they stuff
our heads with, in the media," Aviv was quoted as saying.

The
Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) has put the Palestinian
death toll during the war at 1,417 -- 926 civilians, 236 fighters and
255 police officers. Israeli officials have disputed those figures.
Thirteen Israelis were killed.

On Thursday, an Israeli
think-tank, the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism,
challenged the conclusion that close to 1,000 Gaza civilians were
killed. It said a statistical analysis of PCHR's list of civilian
casualties showed a disproportionate number of young men of fighting
age.

Defence Minister Ehud Barak responded to the IDF
revelations on Thursday by repeating Israel's description of its armed
forces as the most moral in the world. The IDF said its judge
advocate-general had ordered an investigation.

According to a
soldier named as Moshe, investigations into battlefield conduct are not
taken seriously. He said the attitude could be summed up as:

"It isn't pleasant to say so, but no one cares at all. We aren't investigating this. This is what happens during fighting..."

(Writing by Douglas Hamilton; editing by Samia Nakhoul)

-YT


capt_ayhab

What a Joke

by capt_ayhab on

Murderers probe themselves.

//iranian.com/main/news/2009/03/20/israel...

-YT


Mehdi Mazloom

Let me elaborate a bit.

by Mehdi Mazloom on

I have been watching and reading the Israeli media in Hebrew, to learn more about this tragic mistake. I am (as many Israelis) are very sorry about it.

THIS IS NOT AN EXCUSABLE MATTER, IT SHOULD NOT, AND WILL NOT BE TAKEN LIGHTLY BY ISRAELI AUTHORITIES. Military investigators are all over the state investigating this issue - while the accusers are waking free.

Having said that, one has to understand that, in time of war, your senses as solder are far more acute, and response is far quicker then during normal life. Many times, it is your enemy's (Hamas in this case) own tactics does come back to haunt them. What I mean by that, it is known fact among Israeli securities that, when they are hunted, Hamas leaders hide inside woman burgha, covered head to toe - only their eyes are shown. An ugly trick which often is hard to detect (unless you have real time intelligence) to arrest the guy. In other cases they use woman as suicide bombers, Since no Israeli (male) solder is allowed to search a Palestinian woman under full borgha for explosive, they can disguised themselves as pregnan, and casue more destrustion then male counterpart. 

Also one needs to understand that solders are human being too, and some of them may have come from the same towns and cities which hamas rockets were terrorizing their families for over 8 years. Were they angry at the Pals, with the sense of "Now we are going to let you have it basters". I don't know. However it is a plausible possibility.  

From what I have been able to learn is that, Israeli solders were using a Palestinian house, which they received intelligence that the head of the family was a hamas commander. While he was not at home at the time, the wife and children were told by the solders, they can leave. The woman was told to turn RIGHT. She misunderstood the solder and turned LEFT, and mistakenly she walked into a zone where Israeli snipers were monitoring, and had an order shoot anyone passing in the zone. Instead of verifying with his commanders whetehr to shoot the family, he followed the order and shot the family. That was a terrible mistake.

Did he think, she was the man hiding under the burgha?. One does not know until investigations are complete, and we will see the full report.

I also watched retired military general being outrageous with comment,
this is not the way we fight. Nor the values in which we instill in our
military personnel.

Much like annymous fish had said it. At least Israel does admit its mistakes and air them in public.


Farhad Kashani

capt_ayhab,

by Farhad Kashani on

See! At least these “Zionists” whom you so irrationally and blindly bash left and right have the common sense to admit their wrongdoings; when does your beloved IRI Fascists gonna learn from them and have the decency and common sense to admit to all the horrible crimes they have committed???

 


Mehdi Mazloom

Ha'aretz had reported before BBC

by Mehdi Mazloom on

Don't wary capt. Israel's own leading newspaper had already reported  it long befor BBC or others had got wind of the story.

Very tragic and unfortunate incident. Will addrerss it later