‘Horrific’ Video Shows Israeli Soldiers Pushing, Kicking Palestinian Bodies From Rooftop
Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
“There is no military need to do this,” said one rights advocate.
In the latest potential violation of international law by Israeli soldiers in the occupied Palestinian territories, footage verified by media outlets on Friday showed members of the Israel Defense Forces pushing and kicking what appeared to be the lifeless bodies of three Palestinians off a rooftop in Qabatiya, a West Bank town.
The Associated Press obtained video showing three soldiers on the roof of a building that the IDF had attacked with grenades earlier, picking up a body and dragging it toward the edge of the rooftop before pushing it off. On another nearby rooftop, the soldiers in the footage are seen swinging a body by its limbs over the edge of the building onto the ground below, where a bulldozer operated by the IDF was moving.
A third body is seen being kicked by a soldier toward the edge of a building. Ultimately, the soldier kicks the human body all the way off.
An AP journalist and other reporters in Qabatiya also told the outlet they had witnessed the incidents, while Al Jazeera reported it had verified the footage.
Al Jazeera correspondent Hamdah Salhut posted the disturbing footage on the social media platform X.
[dizzy: The link to X is not working, failing with the message “Not found” so I have substituted the following Youtube video.]
Ameed Shehadeh, a correspondent for Al-Arabi who also witnessed the incident, told CNN that “a bulldozer tried to demolish the house to bring the bodies down.”
“That didn’t work,” said Shehadeh. “Soldiers went up and kicked and pushed the bodies off the roof, as we have seen.”
Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, said the video didn’t make clear whether the Israeli soldiers had verified whether the people “were still alive or not” before they kicked and pushed them off the rooftops.
Under the statute of the International Criminal Court, the war crime defined as “committing outrages upon personal dignity” prohibits soldiers from mutilating dead bodies in armed conflicts.
The IDF has been accused of “necroviolence” against the bodies of Palestinians they’ve killed in the past, including in 2020 when a journalist shot a video showing an IDF soldier running over a lifeless body with a bulldozer.
“The footage we’ve seen is horrific and it’s making the rounds here in Palestine. But ultimately, Palestinians are not surprised. Israel has a track record of disrespecting the bodies of the Palestinians they kill,” said Leila Warah, an independent journalist in Palestine.
The Israeli military released a statement saying the footage showed “a serious incident that does not coincide with IDF values and the expectations from IDF soldiers.”
Other attacks and incidents in Gaza and the West Bank over the past year that the IDF has claimed were accidents or were not in accordance with its rules and values include, but are not limited to, the killing of U.S. activist Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi in the West Bank this month, the bombing of a so-called “safe zone” in Rafah, and air strikes that killed seven aid workers with World Central Kitchen in Gaza.
Following a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel last October, Israeli officials also said they were releasing all “restraints” on the IDF in Gaza and referred to the enclave’s 2.3 million people as “human animals.”
The Palestinian Health Ministry reports that the IDF has killed at least 700 Palestinians in the West Bank since last October.
Shawan Jabarin, director of Palestinian rights group Al-Haq, said of the video released Friday, “there is no military need to do this. It’s just a savage way of treating Palestinian bodies.”
He added that the IDF will likely not hold anyone accountable for the abuse of the dead bodies.
“The most that will happen is that soldiers will be disciplined,” said Jabarin, “but there will be no real investigation and no real prosecution.”
Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
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Starmer Risks Conference Rebuke on Winter Fuel Cut as Unite plans to force a vote
SIR KEIR STARMER is facing a possible Labour rebuke over his deeply unpopular plans to cut winter fuel benefits for pensioners.
The party’s largest affiliate, Unite, will try to force a vote on the issue at Labour’s conference, which opens in Liverpool on Sunday.
Unite’s motion also calls for the scrapping of the Treasury’s fiscal rules, which have placed the new government’s spending plans in a strait-jacket.
It urges Labour to borrow more to invest in public services and infrastructure and says that “workers and communities voted for change — a better future, not just better management and not cuts to the winter fuel allowance.”
Calling for a U-turn on the winter fuel cut, the motion added: “We need a vision where pensioners are not the first to face a new wave of cuts and those that profited from decades of deregulation finally help to rebuild Britain.”
The attitude of other affiliated unions will be critical to the success of the motion, which will have to leap procedural hurdles to be debated, something submissions from large unions usually accomplish.
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‘Let there be no doubt, lives will be lost’
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/let-there-be-no-doubt-lives-will-be-lost
More than 1.7 million households plan on keeping their heating off this year, survey reveals
LIVES will be lost, campaigners warned today after a survey revealed that more than 1.7 million households do not plan on turning on their heating this year.
The number of those who said they will keep the heating off in polling for Uswitch is nearly double the 972,000 who said they did not heat their homes last year.
Fifty-five per cent of those blamed the continued rise of the cost of living, while 25 per cent of those over 65 said their decision followed the loss of winter fuel payments.
Another one million households will not turn on the heating until December to keep costs down, according to the poll.
About 43 per cent of households said they will only turn the heating on if they are too cold while 31 per cent will only heat some rooms in their home.
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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/let-there-be-no-doubt-lives-will-be-lost