Zionism

‘Horrific’ Video Shows Israeli Soldiers Pushing, Kicking Palestinian Bodies From Rooftop

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Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Israeli soldiers are seen from a distance, appearing to throw and kick the bodies of Palestinians off a rooftop in [Qabatiya, a West Bank town.]

“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). 

Zionist Keir Starmer is quoted "I support Zionism without qualification." He's asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.
Zionist Keir Starmer is quoted “I support Zionism without qualification.” He’s asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.
Continue Reading‘Horrific’ Video Shows Israeli Soldiers Pushing, Kicking Palestinian Bodies From Rooftop

‘An Extremely Dark Place in History’: UN Panel Says Israel Violated Child Rights Treaty

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Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Palestinian Ahmad Yunis and his three-year-old son, Sami, who were both injured in an Israeli bombing in the Bureij refugee camp, sit outside the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on September 8, 2024. (Photo: Eyad Baba/AFP via Getty Images)

“I don’t think we have seen before, a violation that is so massive, as we are seeing in Gaza now,” said one committee leader.

A United Nations committee on Thursday called out Israel for “serious violations” of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in the occupied Palestinian territories, particularly with its nearly yearlong assault on the Gaza Strip.

“The outrageous death of children is almost historically unique. This is an extremely dark place in history,” said Bragi Guðbrandsson, vice chair of the U.N. Child Rights Committee, which also released its findings on five other parties to the global treaty—Argentina, Armenia, Bahrain, Mexico, and Turkmenistan.

Since the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel, Israeli forces have killed at least 41,272 Palestinians in Gaza and injured another 95,551, according to local officials. Many more remain missing and are believed to be dead and buried in the rubble of bombed civilian infrastructure. The vast majority of the enclave’s 2.3 million residents have been displaced, often numerous times.

Earlier this week, the Gaza Health Ministry publicly identified 34,344 Palestinians who have been killed in the Hamas-governed enclave as of August 31. The document spans 649 pages, the first 14 of which are filled with the names of babies. In total, there are 11,355 children.

The U.N. report states that “the committee is gravely concerned about… the outrageously high number of children in Gaza who continue to be killed, maimed, injured, missing, displaced, orphaned, and subjected to famine, malnutrition, and disease, as well as the multiple displacements of the Gazan population, as a result of the state party’s indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks on Gaza using explosive weapons with wide-area effects in densely populated areas and its denial of humanitarian access, with at least 1 million children displaced, 21,000 children reported missing, 20,000 children who have lost one or both parents, 17,000 children unaccompanied or separated from their families in Gaza, dozens of child deaths due to malnutrition, and 3,500 children at risk of death due to malnutrition and lack of food.”

The panel also expressed alarm over “attacks on and destruction of hospitals, schools, residential buildings, refugee camps, and essential infrastructure, including power facilities and water tanks, by the armed forces, restricting access to health services, education, and housing for the nearly 1 million children living in Gaza.”

Guðbrandsson said that “I don’t think we can identify any measure that was taken to save children’s lives in this military operation in Gaza.”

“I don’t think we have seen before, a violation that is so massive, as we are seeing in Gaza now,” he noted. “These are extremely grave violations that we do not often see.”

As Reuters reported:

Israel, which ratified the treaty in 1991, accused the committee of having a “politically-driven agenda,” in a statement sent by its diplomatic mission in Geneva.

It sent a large delegation to a series of U.N. hearings in Geneva in early September where they argued that the treaty did not apply in Gaza or the West Bank and said that it was committed to respecting international humanitarian law.

It says its military campaign in Gaza is aimed at eliminating the Palestinian enclave’s Hamas rulers and that it does not target civilians but that the militants hide among them, which Hamas denies.

Anne Skelton, chair of the U.N. committee, pushed back against Israel’s position on Thursday, telling journalists, “They were not, in our view, facing up to the reality that 17,000 children are dead and that there have been repeated attacks on schools and hospitals.”

The report also addresses Israel’s claims, saying that “the committee deeply regrets the state party’s repeated denial of its legal obligations under the convention in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT) based on its position that the convention ‘does not apply… to areas beyond a state’s national territory’ and ‘was not designed to apply in situations of armed conflict,’ and that international humanitarian law is the relevant and specific applicable body of law in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.”

“The committee also regrets the limited information it received on the situation of children living in the OPT due to such a position,” the 22-page “concluding observations” document continued. “The committee is of the view that the state party’s denial of the application of the convention cannot be used to justify its grave and persistent violations of international human rights and humanitarian law.”

The panel cited the International Court of Justice advisory opinion from July that found “international human rights instruments are applicable.” The ICJ—which has taken up a genocide case against Israel—also said at the time that the decadeslong Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is illegal and must end “as rapidly as possible.”

The new report says that the Child Rights Committee, “aligning its position with the position of the ICJ, reiterates that the convention applies to all children at all times and is directly applicable in all territories over which the state party exercises effective control, and reminds the state party of its legal obligations both under the convention and international humanitarian law concerning children in the OPT.”

Skelton also argued that “the only real way to serve children’s rights in this situation is a cease-fire.”

However, Israel has shown no signs of ending its assault on the Palestinian enclave—in fact, fears of a wider regional conflict are heightened this week due to bombings of pagers, walkie-talkies, and other devices across Lebanon, attacks supposedly targeting Hezbollah members that Israeli and U.S. officials attributed to Israel’s military and intelligence operatives.

The Child Rights Committee’s report follows U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres adding Israel to the so-called “List of Shame” of nations that kill and wound children during armed conflicts, a June decision that outraged Israeli officials but was praised by human rights advocates as long overdue.

Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue Reading‘An Extremely Dark Place in History’: UN Panel Says Israel Violated Child Rights Treaty

Britain shows ‘complete disregard’ for Palestinians after abstaining on UN vote

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/britain-shows-complete-disregard-palestinians-after-abstaining-un-vote

The UN general assembly meeting in New York

THE British government faces a backlash for showing a “complete disregard” for Palestinian suffering by abstaining from a key UN vote on ending Israeli occupation.

The UN general assembly resolution passed last night demanded that Israel end its “unlawful presence” in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip within a year.

An overwhelming majority of 124 countries voted in favour of the resolution. Britain was one of 43 countries to abstain. Just 14 countries, including the US, voted against it.

Amnesty International’s secretary-general Agnes Callamard said that governments, including Israel’s allies, must ensure that the country complies with the resolution.

…

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/britain-shows-complete-disregard-palestinians-after-abstaining-un-vote

Continue ReadingBritain shows ‘complete disregard’ for Palestinians after abstaining on UN vote

Pager and walkie-talkie attacks on Hezbollah look like war crimes – international legal expert

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EPA-EFE/Wael Hamzeh

Giacomo Biggio, University of Bristol

Tensions in the Middle East have reached a new high after thousands of pagers and radios used by members of Hezbollah exploded across various cities in Lebanon and Syria over September 17 and 18. The attacks – which have widely been attributed to Israel, which has not commented – have resulted in at least 30 people killed and more than 3,000 wounded.

Many analysts and politicians are now speculating that the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which has been simmering during the 11-month conflict in Gaza, will spiral into open warfare.

Far from taking place in a legal vacuum, the attacks are governed by international humanitarian law (IHL). This is the international legal regime that regulates the conduct of hostilities in situations of armed conflict.

Since the Hamas attacks on October 7 provoked Israel’s ferocious response in Gaza, Israel and Hezbollah have been involved in a series of cross-border hostilities. These qualify as what is called a “non-international armed conflict”, to which IHL applies. This includes the rules set out in, among other instruments, the Geneva conventions.

In pursuing the objective of protecting civilians in wartime, the Geneva conventions rely on the fundamental principles of “distinction” and “proportionality”.

What international law says

The principle of distinction essentially requires belligerents to distinguish at all times between the civilian population and combatants.

Combatants are lawful targets and can be attacked at all times. But intentionally attacking civilians is prohibited and constitutes a war crime under the Rome statute of the International Criminal Court. To this end, military commanders are under an obligation to do everything feasible to verify that the target of an attack is not a civilian.

Even assuming that only Hezbollah members were using the radios and pagers at the moment of the attacks, that does not mean that they shall be presumed to be combatants (and, therefore, lawful targets). Under IHL, a combatant is a “member of the armed forces of a party to the conflict”. This comprises “all organized forces, groups and units which are under a command responsible to that party for the conduct of its subordinates”.

By contrast, whoever is not a member of the armed forces of a party to the conflict is a civilian and subject to the protection of IHL.

There is no doubt that members of the military wings of Hezbollah are “members of the armed forces”, so they qualify as combatants. But those members of Hezbollah’s political wing who are not combatants should be considered as civilians and accordingly, are protected from attack.

Civilians may lose protection from attack for such time as they take a direct part in hostilities. This includes conduct like the intentional killing of civilians and carrying out acts which adversely affect the military capacity of a party to an armed conflict – for example, the planning of attacks against Israel.

The pagers were detonated at 3:30, on September 17 in hundreds of locations in Beirut and other Lebanese cities. Abaca Press / Alamy Stock Photo

What about the attacks against members of Hezbollah’s military wing?

In this case, complying with the principle of distinction does not suffice, since the attack must also respect the principle of proportionality. This requires that the expected “collateral damage” (that is, the incidental killing or wounding of civilians) should not be excessive to the “concreted and direct military advantage” anticipated from the attacks.

Launching an attack with the knowledge that it would cause excessive collateral damage also constitutes a war crime.

Collateral damage

In this case, the attacks killed several civilians. These included the nine-year-old daughter of a Hezbollah member, an 11-year-old boy and at least two health workers. Moreover, the attacks injured thousands more, including Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon.

Although we do not know how many of those killed or injured were civilians, it seems logical that the level of collateral damage to be expected from the attacks would be substantial. After all, the pagers and radios were remotely detonated at the same time, exploding in crowded places such as markets and funerals. In these situations, the likelihood of killing and wounding civilians is extremely high.

These elements suggest that the expected incidental damage is excessive to the military advantage anticipated from the pager attacks – which, at the time of writing, remains unclear.

But it’s important to note that what amounts to “excessive” incidental damage is subject to disagreement. On the one hand there are those who, like the International Committee of the Red Cross, believe that extensive incidental damage is always excessive. Others – including the Israeli government – consider that even extensive incidental damage is allowed if the attack results in a high amount of military advantage.

In my opinion, Israel’s interpretation should be rejected. It turns IHL’s aims of protecting the civilian population on its head and allows for unrestricted warfare.

My conclusion, based on the available information, appears to be that the pager and walkie-talkie attacks purportedly carried out by Israel against Hezbollah members appear to violate the principles of distinction and proportionality. In other words, they could well amount to war crimes.

Giacomo Biggio, Lecturer in Law, University of Bristol Law School, University of Bristol

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Continue ReadingPager and walkie-talkie attacks on Hezbollah look like war crimes – international legal expert

In Overwhelming Vote, UN General Assembly Demands Swift End to Israeli Occupation

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Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

The U.N. General Assembly approves a resolution calling for an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories on September 18, 2024. (Photo by Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“The vast majority of countries have made it clear: Israel’s occupation of Palestine must end, and all countries have a definite duty not to aid or assist its continuation.”

The United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday passed a resolution demanding that the Israeli government end its occupation of Palestinian territories within 12 months, affirming a recent International Court of Justice opinion that deemed the decadeslong occupation unlawful.

The Palestine-led resolution, co-sponsored by dozens of nations, calls on Israel to swiftly withdraw “all its military forces” from Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The final vote tally was 124 member states in favor and 14 against, with 43 nations abstaining.

Unsurprisingly, Israel and the United States—Israel’s top ally and arms supplier—were among the 14 countries that opposed the resolution, which is not legally binding. The United Kingdom, which recently suspended some arms export licenses for Israel, abstained from Wednesday’s vote, a decision that the advocacy group Global Justice Now (GJN) said shows “complete disregard for the ongoing suffering of Palestinians forced to live under military-enforced racial discrimination.”

“The vast majority of countries have made it clear: Israel’s occupation of Palestine must end, and all countries have a definite duty not to aid or assist its continuation,” said GJN’s Tim Bierley. “To stay on the right side of international law, the U.K.’s dealings with Israel must drastically change, including closing all loopholes in its partial arms ban and revoking any trade or investment relations that might assist the occupation.”

The Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement welcomed passage of the resolution, noting that the U.N. General Assembly voted “for the first time in 42 years” in favor of “imposing sanctions on Israel.”

The resolution specifically calls on all U.N. member states to “implement sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, against natural and legal persons engaged in the maintenance of Israel’s unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territory, including in relation to settler violence.”

The resolution’s passage came nearly two months after the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the U.N.’s highest legal body, handed down an advisory opinion concluding that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories is illegal and must end “as rapidly as possible.”

The newly approved resolution states that “respect for the International Court of Justice and its functions… is essential to international law and justice and to an international order based on the rule of law.”

The Biden administration, which is heavily arming the Israeli military as it assails Gaza and the West Bank, criticized the ICJ’s opinion as overly broad.

Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said in a statement Wednesday that “the Biden administration should join the overwhelming majority of nations around the world in condemning these crimes against the Palestinian people, demanding an end to the occupation, and exerting serious pressure on the Israeli government to comply.”

“We welcome this U.N. resolution demanding an end to one of the worst and ongoing crimes against humanity of the past century,” said Awad.

Ahead of Wednesday’s vote, a group of U.N. experts said in a statement that many countries “appear unwilling or unable to take the necessary steps to meet their obligations” in the wake of the ICJ’s opinion.

“Devastating attacks on Palestinians across the occupied Palestinian territory show that by continuing to turn a blind eye to the horrific plight of the Palestinian people, the international community is furthering genocidal violence,” the experts said. “States must act now. They must listen to voices calling on them to take action to stop Israel’s attacks against the Palestinians and end its unlawful occupation. All states have a legal obligation to comply with the ICJ’s ruling and must promote adherence to norms that protect civilians.”

Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingIn Overwhelming Vote, UN General Assembly Demands Swift End to Israeli Occupation