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Cut to Pieces: The Palestinian Family Drinking Tea in Their Courtyard
Israeli unmanned aerial vehicles – the dreaded drones – caused at least 48 deaths in Gaza during the 23-day offensive
Mounir al-Jarah slowly takes down the bricks he used to wall up the entrance to his sister's courtyard. Inside, flesh still clings to the walls; blood-soaked furniture and family items lie broken and mangled.
Mounir's eyes search around the old house as he recounts the events of 16 January, when a rocket fired from an unmanned aerial vehicle killed his sister, her husband and four of her children.
Sitting around drinking tea with the family in their small courtyard, Mounir heard the loud buzzing of an Israeli drone, clearly visible in the sky above.
He went inside for a moment and, as he returned, he saw a ball of light hurtling down toward him. There was a loud explosion and he was thrown backward. He gathered himself and stumbled out into the courtyard, where he saw the scene he says will never leave him.
"We found Mohammed lying there, cut in half. Ahmed was in three pieces; Wahid was totally burnt - his eyes were gone. Wahid's father was dead. Nour had been decapitated. We couldn't see her head anywhere."
All six members of the family had been blown to pieces, coating each wall of the narrow enclosure with blood and body matter.
"You cannot imagine the scene: a family all sitting around together and then, in a matter of seconds, they were cut to pieces. Even the next day we found limbs and body parts on the roof, feet and hands," Mounir says.
Fatheya, 17, is one of the few surviving members of the family. Slipping further into grief-stricken madness, flitting from one horrific description to the next, she says: "There were rocks and dust and fire ... It's very difficult ... I can't, no matter how I try to explain my situation to you, picking up the pieces of my dead family ... I couldn't handle it, limbs and flesh all around me. What have we done to deserve this?"
The attack on this home in Gaza City is just one of more than a dozen incidents recorded by Amnesty International where Israel's unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) - or drones - killed one or more civilians.
During the 23-day offensive, 1,380 Palestinians perished, 431 of them children, according to figures published by the World Health Organisation.
A Guardian investigation into the high number of civilian deaths has found Israel used a variety of weapons in illegal ways. Indiscriminate munitions, including shells packed with white phosphorus, were fired into densely populated areas, while precision missiles and tanks shells were fired into civilian homes.
But it is the use of drones in the killing of at least 48 civilians that appears most reprehensible.
The drones are operated from a remote position, usually outside the combat zone. They use optics that are able to see the details of a man's clothing and are fitted with pinpoint accurate missiles.
Yet they killed Mounir's family sitting in their courtyard, a group of girls and women in an empty street, two small children in a field, and many others.
Chris Cobb-Smith, a senior military analyst in Gaza to advise Amnesty in its investigation, is at a loss to explain how these killings occurred.
"With a weapons system that is so accurate, and with such good optics, why are we experiencing so many civilians being killed? There should be no excuse for these numbers," he said.
The Guardian asked the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) about their use of armed drones but they declined to be interviewed on the subject. Instead they issued a written statement: "The IDF operated in accordance with the rules of war and did the utmost to minimise harm to civilians uninvolved in combat. The IDF's use of weapons conforms to international law."
Israel still refuses to confirm whether it is using armed drones over Gaza but, in the online version of an Israeli army magazine, Major Gil, the deputy commander of the first UAV squadron, describes using the drones to carry out attacks during this offensive.
"We were able to monitor each of the soldiers at any minute and identify any threats to them," he said.
He also describes being able to clearly distinguish fighters from women and children and other civilians: "When there were innocent people around, we would wait for the terrorist to leave the child and then hit him," he said.
Lieutenant Tal, an operator and intelligence officer in the UAV squadron, describes the details the drone cameras can see.
"We identified a terrorist that looked like an Israeli soldier. Our camera enabled us to see him very clearly. He was wearing a green parka jacket and was walking around with a huge radio that looked exactly like an army radio. It was very clear he wasn't a soldier."
According to Robert Hewson of Jane's Defence Weekly, who has been monitoring armed drones and their role in assassinations in the occupied territories since 2004, most of Israel's armed drones use a modified anti-tank weapon called a mikholit ("paintbrush" in Hebrew) that delivers a small but intense explosion like the one in Mounir's courtyard.
Teams of human rights investigators and international law experts are now building the case for war crimes charges against Israel and trying to decipher why so many innocents were killed in this offensive.
The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz discovered that the IDF's international law division (ILD,) the body responsible for advising Israeli forces on the legality of their actions, had authorised an easing of the rules of engagement in Gaza.
A copy of the rules of engagement for Operation Cast Lead was obtained by Ha'aretz in the days before the offensive began. According to a journalist who saw the document, the new, less stringent rules were approved at the highest levels of the Israeli military.
Ha'aretz was repeatedly blocked from publishing the document by the military censor.
In recent days, striking testimony has emerged from Israeli soldiers involved in the Gaza fighting, in which they described the shooting of civilians and the low regard held among the troops for Palestinians.
The soldiers, all graduates of the same Israeli college, gave their testimony in a session in mid-February. It was published last week in the college newsletter, forcing the Israeli military to announce another investigation into the conduct of the war.
In one of the worst cases, a soldier described how an Israeli sniper shot dead a Palestinian mother and her two children. He said the soldiers around him believed the lives of Palestinians were "very, very less important than the lives of our soldiers".
Another soldier said a company commander had given orders to shoot an elderly Palestinian woman who was walking on a road about 100m from a house the soldiers had taken over. Others talked about the influence of military rabbis and the sense among soldiers that they were fighting a "religious war".
Some efforts to explain the large number of civilian deaths have focused on the aggressive conduct of the war by Israel. But other explanations look at a broader shift in military philosophy.
The former head of the ILD, Colonel Daniel Reisner, spoke frankly to the Israeli media in the aftermath about the role the body plays in pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable in war.
"What we are seeing now is a revision of international law," Reisner said. "If you do something for long enough, the world will accept it. The whole of international law is now based on the notion that an act that is forbidden today becomes permissible if executed by enough countries.
"International law progresses through violations. We invented the targeted assassination thesis and we had to push it."
The United Nations human rights council is preparing to launch an inquiry into allegations that Israel committed war crimes during its offensive against Gaza. Israel has already dismissed the inquiry, accusing the UN of bias. It says Palestinian fighters committed war crimes by firing mostly crude homemade rockets into civilian areas.
Amnesty International says Palestinian militants should be prosecuted for war crimes, but insists the vast majority of offences were committed by Israel. "Only an investigation mandated by the UN security council can ensure Israel's cooperation and it's the only body that can secure some kind of prosecution," said Amnesty's Donatella Rovera, who spent two weeks in Gaza investigating war crimes allegations.
"Without a proper investigation there is no deterrent. The message remains the same: 'Its okay to do these things, there wont be any real consequences'."
- Posted in
53 Comments so far
Show AllIs this the future of warfare? Using unmanned vehicles that either cannot provide as clear a picture as claimed, or else they can see as clearly as claimed and they are purposely targeting civilians? What hesitation will there be to go to war in the future if it can be waged without risking any lives on the side of the unmanned vehicles?
I'm not as hopeful as the Amnesty spokesperson is regarding a UN Security Council investigation. The US is a permanant member of the council and a or THE leading supporter of Iraeli war crimes so I fear this will just enter a blackhole in history as so many other crimes committed by the state of Israel have.
Zmann,
Is war better when people die in equal numbers on both sides? Either way, this is the present and future of warfare. Get used to it. Also, often the aerial view is much better than that on the ground, so it quite possibly avoids more deaths than it leads to. I've seen some videos of missiles that were purposely led into empty fields after targets purposely drove into populated areas.
Eventually, we will see fast, deadly robots that will revolutionize urban warfare. It might be only a few years away.
No , I do not think anyone should "get used to it". It unacceptable.
Vancouver is undergoing a gang war where people seem to be getting shot on a daily basis. Should we try to do something to stop it, or just get used to it?
Well, based on their record so far, the drones seem to kill pretty indiscriminately. And the best way to prevent deaths of people on "our" side is to not be on other peoples land violently meddling in their sovereign affairs to begin with.
They also kill "combatants" in situation where they are neither handling arms at the time, nor given an opportunity to surrender.
They also are primarily used by imperialist forces against legitimate liberation movements like the Palestinians. If the British had UAV's and robots, would there be a free Ireland, a free India, or going back a bit further, a free United States today? If the French has these weapons, would there be any free North African nations, or a free Vietnam?
---USAn---
Although it is sounding like they play a part in Zmann's wet dreams, He is right in so far as we will see these things. However, I would be in favour of pushing them off as far into the future as possible. Pray that you dont' live long enough to see them coming after you. Does anyone remember when all Japan produced was junk? Now they are the leaders in robotics. What is souce for the goose...
Uh, I have set dreams about hot women, not murdering innocent people, thank you very much. It horrifies me...already our country resorts to force way too quickly, and in most cases it's risk-free anyway, such as missiles launched from offshore warships or bombing raids in areas that have no air defenses. And I've read that Japan is investing so heavily in robotics so that when it's too-old population dies off and can't be replaced by a new generation in full, their industrial output won't falter dramatically.
And when clever powerful robots are found in every bargain bin, and clever people around the world set them on US civilians, what will the US government say:
- Oh those dastardly, cowardly terrorists! Why, when we kill hundreds/thousands of children it is…
a- in a good cause
b- an accident
c- …well, who is going to stop us?
…but those cowardly terrorists kill innocents on purpose. Why it was only a few months ago that one of those Hamas pipe rockets hit something (You probably forgot the incident, being distracted and all by the dead and wounded, in the thousands, in Gaza.)
My sympathies, by the way, go to the American who got shot on the West Bank, and his family. Ironic, isn’t it, that his parents tax bill probably paid for the weapon that hit him.
Yes, all those people at the weddings in Afghanistan that were blown up by drones firing missiles were so dangerous to Americans here. I take your point.
Where I put Zmann it should read TheMiddleRoad. My apologies.
I wondered about that. Because indeed it's TheMiddleRoad and not Zmann who seems positively encouraged by new & improved delivery systems for wanton homicide and destruction.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Ah. Now I see it. Ignore my sarcasm then.
D E A D _ S K U N K
You say "… we will see fast, deadly robots that will revolutionize urban warfare."
NO, the robots will see you first -- and then there would be nothing left to do the seeing
Namaste
Right on, dead skunk! Hasn't Zmann seen the Terminator trilogy?
because "israel" (i prefer to call it the-state-which-hides-behind-the-name,-"israel") is in the forefront of weapons development in the u.s. as well as with its own research and manufacture...middle road has more and more the feeling of an "israel"psy-operation. they can collate study and extrapolate from our responses,,,
And the US and the world do nothing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FABqq_jjRRo&eur
Israel's willing helpers. Will their children be paying for these crimes in 60 years like the well-milked Germans?
Goodness let's hope so!
the cumulative effects of kindness and love are every bit as powerful as the cumulative effects of violence and hate.
"if you do something for long enough, the world will accept it." -does this quote remind anyone else of a certain statement by goebbels?
to mounir al-jarah i say your family did not live or die in vain. i did not know them but do know that every life is precious and that in our rage & grief under such circumstance it is better to cultivate the grief seeds of love than those of hate. this requires a willingness to be present with extreme pain and still recognize it as impersonal. i used to write letters for amnesty intl. urgent actions in latin america and may or may not do so again. i think i stopped because the impunity enjoyed so much by the u.s. made me feel absurd lecturing foreign government officials about human rights. overcoming human hypocrisy, whether internally/personally or externally/collectively is certainly not possible with a mindset that disregards our common humanity and interconnectedness. i hear the dalai lama regularly practices tonglen meditation for the benefit of the chinese... especially the torturers of monks.
sometimes if you do something (in error) long enough, the world will reject it and replace it with something better. the hypocrisies of our national and international policy makers are less durable than the human capacity for compassion.
The cumulative effects of kindness and love are MORE powerful than the cumulative effects of violence and hate. The problem is that there is so little kindness and love--a little has to go a long way.
Israel must be very proud of its actions.
How horrible. All those responsible, all those with the power to execute such despicable acts -- the politicians, the commanders, and the grunts -- should face deaths of equal horror.
I S R A E L I ___ B A C K _ B R E A K I N G _ N E W S
Unbelievably, the Israeli Supreme Court has instantiated RACISM,
in its declared war against ALL of Palestine
see Israel's Most Revolting Law ! :
http://www.counterpunch.org/avnery03232009.html
This supports the fact that the CIA expects and projects the
END of ISRAEL in 20 years :
http://tinyurl.com/CIA-demise-of-Israel
Namaste
Israel is testing new US weapons. I'm not sure exactly who we will be killing this way soon, but maybe the Iranis.
I am so ashamed of what is being done in "God's" name. More wars have been fought in the name of whatever god is popular than anyother excuse when in reality all wars are fought for economic reasons. Unfortunately, the Israelis call it a war, when it was not a declared war, but an execution of Palestinians. This is awful and I want our government to condemn the entire operation.
Whenever I'm asked if I believe in God, I ask in return, "Which one?" I've always kind of favored Dionysius, myself, so let's have a drink in his honor.
Just be very careful, EKATON. There might be a split and a battle over whether to drink white or red wine.
Hahaha!! Undoubtedly. The red wine traditionalists versus the radical white wine breakaway groups.
"The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz discovered that the IDF's international law division (ILD,) the body responsible for advising Israeli forces on the legality of their actions, had authorised an easing of the rules of engagement in Gaza."
"International law progresses through violations. We invented the targeted assassination thesis and we had to push it."
"They also kill "combatants" in situation where they are neither handling arms at the time, nor given an opportunity to surrender."
The family murdered by an Israeli operating a drone from a distant place were not combatants. I am reminded of the legalisms of the likes of John Yoo authorizing torture by Americans. Israel has become one big war crime.
-30-
Wake up folks, why are you discussing details? It has been a well known long standing policy of Israel to purposely kill civilians to crush support for freedom fighters. Wake up!
All you Obama lovers need to get on the phone and force him to support prosecution of israel.
That colonel is absolutely correct when people like bush and the IDF get away with war crimes it becomes de facto legal.
Might be kinda hard to get through to him Glenn with Rahm skulking the halls of the White House don't ya think?
The 'world' will do as the USA, simple. America's unconditionable support for all of Israel's actions is good enough for many Western politicians, who lack the will or guts to look objectively at the way Israel has been pushing the envelope for decades.
What sad times we live in, when the Israelis are the new Nazis.
Israeli drone, or US drone given to Israel?
good question!
I just have to wonder if the "brave" IDF will ever realize that the Palestinian people are not the Nazi's. And, I just have to wonder when they will realize that THEY are the Nazi's? They slaughter innocents with intent, and with impunity, and the United States just stands by while they begin their "final solution".
From an article by Uri Avnery in yesterdays edition of Counterpunch...
"The answer of the Ministry of Justice lawyers let the cat out of the bag. It asserts, for the first time, in unequivocal language, that:
“The State of Israel is at war with the Palestinian people, people against people, collective against collective.”"
Gaza was just the beginning of complete genocide to be carried out against ALL Palestinians, be they men, women, children or babies. Israel was not responding to Hamas missile attacks, that was just a lame excuse, a means to an end if you will. They were instead starting the first phase of the "final solution" to the Palestinian "problem". This "war" was an R&D effort (much like Guernica) to determine which weapons systems will be best to slaughter the remaining Palestinians...ALL OF THEM. You see, Israeli Zionists see themselves as the new Master Race, aka God's Chosen People and these others about them, are not, and will be swept to their deaths by the "righteous army of morality" that is the "brave" IDF. Anyone, you or I, or ANYONE else who is not amongst the "Chosen People" are targets for the mindless Zionists who lust for blood and death. None of us are even human to them. This is the insanity of Zionism.
Simply put, Israel should be made a pariah nation, and boycotted by the entire world, until, or if, they agree to stop butchering Palestinians. The only way to effect a change there is to end commerce with that nation of vicious religious zealots. It's sad that there are so many wonderful Jewish people (such as Uri Avnery) who live there, because, if this were to take place, they would suffer along with the criminal Zionists.
This declaration of the Israeli Ministry of Justice, against ALL Palestinians, clearly shows that Zionism is Nazism, it's that simple. And the only way to deal with Nazi's is from strength, because it's the only thing they understand. And strength is the only thing that can stop them from slaughtering every single living Palestinian wherever they are...no matter who they are, no matter if they've done wrong against Israel or no. Zionists do not consider them to be dogs, to them, the Palestinians are less than dogs, because they are challengers to the Zionist hegemony over that tragic land known as "The Holy Land"...Israel considers them as usurpers of their god given insanity...that says it's ok to slaughter your neighbors, cause god says it's ok. God says Zionists can literally do no wrong, so why hold back when a baby comes into their crosshairs?
One final sickening example of the psychopathic and nihilistic Nazism of the Zionists, is in this quote from that same article by Uri Avnery from yesterday...
"The soldiers of an army unit order T-shirts showing a pregnant Arab woman with a rifle trained on her belly and the words “1 shot, 2 kills” (as exposed in Haaretz this week)."
Disgusting.
zmann...Indeed this is the future of warfare. Murdering darker-skinned people from afar...what fun..what could be better?. Especially for the Zionist Jews, who are taught from early age to hate Goyim (non-Jews). The Talmud, their cult dogma, teaches them to cheat, steal, lie...even to kill Goyim, because they (Goyim) are animals, hence any act perpetrated on them is not punishable under Jew law. Wonderful. And now they are controlling the public American discussion regarding Zionist war crimes against humanity through the efforts of Zionist agents like Charles Schumer...dof course, leaving out the part about Israel repeatedly stabbing America in the back.
Too bad they weren't Reform Jews instead. We were never taught to hate anyone.
Some Jews have evolved, obviously others have not.
Be careful here. In NY there are ultra-Orthodox Jews who demonstrate against the siege of Gaza. There are plenty of reform Jews who support it. Secular and Liberal Jews are more divided than the neo-con Zionists, who are often Christian.
Joe
Hm true, the NY area is way different from the South Florida area I grew up in. And true, many of my family members support Israel pretty much no matter what. But still, none of our religious school lessons ever had anything to do with hating anyone.
Go back and read the accounts of what the American government and military proudly called "Shock and Awe" in the invasion of Iraq. Iraqi civilians, men, women and children, sliced and diced by "daisy-cutters" (outlawed by the Geneva conventions)fired from helicopters in their gardens and fields around the small town of Hillah; the targeting of journalists and the office of Al-jazeerah by tanks in Baghdad after they had given out their co-ordinates and on and on. What the US was doing was signaling that THIS is a perfectly acceptable way to conduct warfare and that message was picked up, of course, by the Israelis. OF COURSE. Did anyone ever doubt what the result of our illegal, immoral slaughter of innocent Iraqis would be?
Rainborowe
Well, Israelis and Americans--just about the same, I'd say. The modern Jewish State should be called the 52nd State of the Union--the one that leads the others.
The u.s. and their israeli partners have plenty of frighteningly powerful weapons, missiles, bombs to do what they did to Mounir's family, as we all know too well. Nevertheless, hitting people with remote control drones is a war crime, wether or not it is listed in any conventions, because the cowards hiding in far away places are not observing the most fundamental rules of war, and furthermore drones cannot see what they fire at or what they hit. so the perpetrators escape both the risks of real war, but also don't have to look at the gruesome results.Not that any of this has ever been of any interest to either the u.s. or israel. But the rest of world is getting damned fed up with these marauding monsters, and it's long past time to stop them both.
Why so much "antisemitism" for so many years in so many different places? Why?
One word EKATON. Israel. You can't have it both ways. Step on people, kill them, subject them to collective torture starvation and murder, sing and celebrate the death of children as a people.
Guess what, Israel calls itself the Jewish Country, which it is, thus this insane mass murder-spree causes blowback for Jews around the world. One billion Islamic people are enraged at all times about Palestine, a few billion more are horrified.
EKATON, the party is over, now isra-Hell kills under the bright lights,
and Tanks with the star of david killing babies causes hatred for jews.
Nazism caused hatred for Germany. What a concept! People don't like mass murder!
b4 you trot out the tired im antisemtic horse, it is dead. i love good jews.
"b4 you trot out the tired im antisemtic horse, it is dead."
I have absolutely no intention of doing so. I agree wholeheartedly with what you wrote. I, too, have been accused of anti-semitism, but the way I see it, they bring it upon themselves, not always, but many times. I had much sympathy for the Jews of Israel until I actually began to look into what is really happening there and how the Jewish state was founded. Mine was kind of a rhetorical question, the sort of one where most clear headed people already know the answer. I don't hate Jews. I hate the actions of Israel against the indigenous peoples. I am anti-Zionist.
ekaton aka d.k.shaw
d.k. shaw, Thanks for your cool reply. Jews of of conscience & beauty bless our world, as pervasive as flowers. It is so tragic that this thorned bush has taken root in Palestine & hi-jacked much of Judaism's soul. In antiwar.com now an article details plans for a spike in the coffin of the West Bank, a settlement w/ heavy, horrible implications. Concurrently? The NYT's front page has an article quoting Bibi saying Palestinians may now view Israel as a Vessel of Peace. Pretty funny reading. A Pre-emptive msm strike.
Most respectfully, from California.
Shortly after 911 Bibi Netanyahu said that "911 was good for Israel"
Google "Netanyahu 911 good for Israel" without the quotes and you'll find several articles confirming my statement.
I also remember videos of Arafat weeping and donating blood, while other Palestinians celebrated afterward. Netanyahu as right in that it solidified U.S. support against Islamic terrorists, which did plague Israel back then far more than it does no, but wrong in that unquestioning U.S. support of Israel is NOT good for Israel, plain and simple.
After arrogance, come hubris. That's a law of nature, not anti-semitism. The Zionist Israelis have finally gone too far, even for the United States. Also, there is the fact that Arabs are Semitic. So who's being anti-Semitic in this battle that took hundreds of Palestinian civilian lives for every Israeli.
Why exactly have Jews been persecuted for thousands of years? They are never at fault it seems, so don't look there. It couldn't be because they consider themselves God's chosen people could it. That's not getting off to a good start in human relations. It couldn't be that, if given the chance, they have proven themselves to be just about as bloody as anyone on the planet, their excuse being that they are just a little bit special. Plopping an aggressive, land grabbing state right in the middl of Islam territory will not be such a good idea, in the end. The Muslims consider themselves just a little special too.
I have often stated that Jews indigenous to the area are Arabs according to their DNA. Arabs are Semitic people. There are actually Jewish Arabs, also known as Sephardic Jews, and Muslim Arabs. Jews from Europe who moved to "Israel" in the 1900's and then en masse after WW II are of eastern European Khazar ancestry and are not Semitic, a term which relates to a group of people speaking similar languages and indigenous to the Middle East. Often the Khazars treat the indigenous Jews nearly as badly as they do the Arabs.
Sadly, all three "peoples of the book" -- Jews, Muslims and Christians -- consider themselves just a little bit special. Jesus (PBUH), in fact, is considered to be a revered prophet by Muslims.