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Israel Convicts Troops of Using Human Shield in Gaza
JERUSALEM — An Israeli military court on Sunday convicted two soldiers of using a Palestinian child as a human shield by forcing him to check for booby traps during the 2008-2009 Gaza war.
A Palestinian opening the door for Israeli soldiers in the West Bank city of Hebron in 2004. (Photo by: AP) A
transcript of the court decision made available by the army said the
infantry sergeants were found guilty of "exceeding their authority to
the point of endangering life," and "conduct unbecoming," for ordering a
nine-year-old boy to search bags confiscated from arrested
Palestinians.
The court acknowledged however that at the time of the incident, January 15, 2009, the troops had been under "difficult and dangerous combat conditions" and had gone several nights without sleep.
Sentencing is to be decided at a later date, the military said.
Israel's Supreme Court has banned such actions, saying they amount to using a civilian as a human shield.
According to testimony released when the two soldiers went on trial in March, the child, identified as Majd R., said he feared for his life.
"I thought they would kill me. I became very scared and wet my pants," he said in an affidavit to Defence for Children International, a Geneva-based group.
"There were two bags in front of me," the boy said. "I grabbed the first one as he (the soldier) stood one-and-a-half metres (yards) away. I opened the bag as he pointed his weapon directly at me. I emptied the bag on the floor. It contained money and papers. I looked at him and he was laughing."
Army radio said several of the two soldiers' comrades attended the hearing wearing shirts saying, "We are the victims of Goldstone," referring to a UN Human Rights Council probe of the war by South African jurist Richard Goldstone that accused Israel and Palestinian militants of war crimes.
The report said there was evidence that both sides committed crimes against humanity during the 22-day conflict and recommended that the International Criminal Court examine its findings in the absence of "credible investigations" on both sides.
Israel vehemently rejected the report as "biased."
The military began its own investigation of the bag-searching incident in June 2009. It said the probe was unrelated to the Goldstone mission, which was visiting the Gaza Strip at the same time.
Israel launched the 22-day offensive in December 2008 in a bid to halt Palestinian rocket attacks from the territory ruled by the militant Hamas movement. Some 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed in the fighting.
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9 Comments so far
Show AllThe evil Israeli justice system, the most evil and corrupt in the world, once again lets a soldier go free after the most heinous of war crimes. Obviously Israel is an evil state that is so biased, it can never carry out justice. This soldier's crime, making a kid open his family's bag, truly puts the "resistance" actions of our beloved Palestinians into perspective. Random firing of rockets at civilians is a wonderful and beautiful thing that we should celebrate and support. The honorable slaughtering of Israeli students with suicide bombs, just a wonderful act of peace and love. Allah akbar!
Iman Darweesh Al Hams was a 13-year-old Palestinian schoolgirl, murdered by an IDF commander. This is the justice meted out to the murderer by the Israeli "justice" system:
An Israeli army officer who fired the entire magazine of his automatic rifle into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl and then said he would have done the same even if she had been three years old was acquitted on all charges by a military court yesterday.
The soldier, who has only been identified as "Captain R", was charged with relatively minor offences for the killing of Iman al-Hams who was shot 17 times as she ventured near an Israeli army post near Rafah refugee camp in Gaza .
The following is a recording of a three-way conversation that took place between a soldier in a watchtower, an army operations room and Capt R, who shot the girl
From the watchtower [three-way conversation between watchtower soldier, the operations room in another location, and finally, Captain R, the officer on the ground near watchtower "It's a little girl. She's running defensively eastward." "Are we talking about a girl under the age of 10?" "A girl about 10, she's behind the embankment, scared to death." "I think that one of the positions took her out." "I and another soldier ... are going in a little nearer, forward, to confirm the kill ... Receive a situation report. We fired and killed her ... I also confirmed the kill. Over."
From the operations room "Are we talking about a girl under the age of 10?"
Watchtower "A girl about 10, she's behind the embankment, scared to death."
A few minutes later, Iman is shot from one of the army posts
Watchtower "I think that one of the positions took her out."
Captain R "I and another soldier ... are going in a little nearer, forward, to confirm the kill ... Receive a situation report. We fired and killed her ... I also confirmed the kill. Over."
Capt R then "clarifies" why he killed Iman
"This is commander. Anything that's mobile, that moves in the zone, even if it's a three-year-old, needs to be killed. Over."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/nov/16/israel2
We'll know 5 years from now if this is a genuine verdict or not. There's a long history of trials of Israeli Army officers who were convicted of crimes as serious as massacre of dozens of women and children, yet who were found running beachfront tourist hotels (something that requires a much coveted license) or government departments a few years later when media sound bites ("most moral army in the world", etc.) and PR generated by their trial had died away.
http://www.counterpunch.org/cook10302008.html
Next we will hear that the 'settlers' have burned a mosque...
You can't say they weren't paying attention, and learning, when they were in the camps in the 1930s and 1940s.
Using frightened young children to check for bombs is exactly what their German twins would have done.
Does anyone doubt that the thought going through these two soldiers' heads is "Why the hell are they picking on us?"?
q
the state of israel is using these soldiers as the human shield against the world's wrath.
but no one's surprised at the slimyness of their action.
Yep--they are scapegoats that are supposed to make the entire Gaza massacre go away: "See, we Israelis know something about justice, and we'll patrol our own, thank you very much." Well, if the Germans had jailed two soldiers for crimes against the Jews no one would be satisfied. And neither should we be.
The Israeli organization "Breaking the Silence" published 96 testimonies by female Israeli soldiers. They describe a pervasive pattern of violence, harassment, theft, and humiliation practiced by Israeli forces against Palestinian men, women, and children. Below are excerpts:
"We caught a five-year-old… the officers just picked him up, slapped him around and put him in the jeep. The kid was crying and the officer next to me said 'don't cry' and started laughing at him. Finally the kid cracked a smile – and suddenly the officer gave him a punch in the stomach. Why? 'Don't laugh in my face' he said."
“...it's boring, so we'd create some action. We'd get on the radio, and say they threw stones at us, then someone would be arrested… There was a policewoman, she was bored, so okay, she said they threw stones at her. They asked her who threw them. 'I don't know, two in grey shirts, I didn't manage to see them.' They catch two guys with grey shirts… beat them. Is it them? 'No, I don't think so.' Okay, a whole incident, people get beaten up. Nothing happened that day."
"...two of our soldiers put him [a Palestinian child] in a jeep, and two weeks later the kid was walking around with casts on both arms and legs...they talked about it in the unit quite a lot - about how they sat him down and put his hand on the chair and simply broke it right there on the chair."
An officer described soldiers shooting to death a nine-year-old as he was trying to run away: “They shot in the air, as they say – shot in the air in the lungs…”
In their testimonies, these soldiers emphasize that mistreatment of Palestinian civilians is widespread, routine, and known to everyone. Both the Israeli and the Palestinian press have published excerpts.