- 5 sept 2005
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Five killed, 35 injured in Gaza blast
Hamas holds Israel responsible for Gaza blast
6 sept 2005
Israeli troops say they were given shoot-to-kill order
Israeli military prosecutors have opened criminal investigations following allegations by soldiers that they carried out illegal shoot-to-kill orders against unarmed Palestinians.
The 17 separate investigations were prompted by the testimony of dozens of troops collected by Breaking the Silence, a pressure group of former Israeli soldiers committed to exposing human rights abuses by the military in suppressing the Palestinian intifada. The investigations cover a range of allegations, including misuse of weapons and other misuses of power.
Some of the soldiers, who also spoke to the Guardian, say they acted on standing orders in some parts of the Palestinian territories to open fire on people regardless of whether they were armed or not, or posed any physical threat.
The soldiers say that in some situations they were ordered to shoot anyone who appeared on a roof or a balcony, anyone who appeared to be kneeling to the ground or anyone who appeared on the street at a designated time. Among those killed by soldiers acting on the orders were young children.
While the background to the soldiers' experience is the armed conflict that has been going on in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since October 2000, many of the shootings occurred in periods of calm when there was no immediate risk to the soldiers involved.
Yehuda Shaul, the co-founder of Breaking the Silence, said it aimed to show that individual soldiers were not to blame for killings of innocent Palestinians. "It is the situation which is to blame and that is created by military and political leaders, not the soldiers on the ground," he said.
The testimonies shed light on how around 1,700 Palestinian civilians have been killed during the second intifada.
http://fwd4.me/0wYO
Nemer Riad 'Abd al-Hamid a-Sa'adoni 17
Youth killed in Khan Younis
(Nimer Riyad Abdul-Hamid al-Sadoni, 17) 12 apr 2012, 16:31 , Respect- 7 sept 2005
Army killed unarmed teens, not fighters, Haaretz and B'Tselem probe finds
Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, B'Tselem, and the Israeli online daily Haaretz, conducted a probe into the killing of five Palestinians by the Israeli army in Tulkarem refugee camp, on August 24, and revealed that the five residents were unarmed, and not fighters, which contradicts the version of the Israeli army.
The Israeli army announced that the operation was carried as follows;
“Five [terrorists] responsible for the attacks at the Stage club and Hasharon Mall in Netanya were killed in Tulkarem"?.
Yet the announcement was changed several times, the army said that following residents were killed in the attack;
Anas Abu Zreina, 16, is "an accessory to wanted fighters", Adel Abu Khaleel, 26, was described as a senior Islamic Jihad operative from Atteel village near Tulkarem, Majdi Ateyya, 18, described as member of Al Aqsa Brigades, the military wing of Fateh, and was also described as somebody who prepared explosives and took part in attacks against the army, Majdi A-team, 20, member of Al Aqsa Brigades, the military wing of Fateh, Mahmoud Ismail Hdeib, 18.
Meanwhile, material collected by B'Tselem and Haaretz revealed that the three teenage boys, Mohammed Othman Abu Zeina, 17, Mahmoud Ehdieb, 17, and Anas Abu Zreina, 16, are not members of any reistance group.
The two adults killed in the operation were unarmed, and were shot at short range from 10-15 meters away, while they were in a largely-enclosed courtyard.
Witnesses in Tulkarem refugee camp, where the assassinations took place, said that they heard the soldiers shout at the group "Stop" and "Don't move," but seconds later, the soldiers opened fire without giving the men a chance to turn themselves in.
Some ran in every direction, and some were killed on the spot.
Also, witnesses said that in several cases the soldiers proceeded to confirm the kill with close-range shots.
The witnesses added that there had been no exchange of fire in the vicinity, nor were Molotov cocktails thrown at the troops, which contradict the army version of the events.
Before the operation began, some wanted fighters passed by the area, including Ribhi Amara, a senior Hamas fighter in the camp, who spotted the army and fled away into an alley in the camp, a Palestinian policeman Musheer Al Masry, member of force 17, also escaped leaving his gun licensed behind.
A whiteness who identified himself as (A ) owns a store close to the courtyard, where the youth were killed.
(A ) said that at around 11:15 P.M. that night he was sitting at the store's entrance with his 3-year-old daughter, when he saw a long white van with Palestinian plates and curtained windows.
“The van stopped, and soldiers jumped out of it, they rushed toward structure next to the courtyard where the fatalities occurred and began shouting", A reported, "that point other soldiers had already run toward me and ordered me to lie face down on the ground. I hugged the child tight and didn't move until it was all over," A. added.
Also, resident (P) lives about 50 meters from the site in an apartment overlooking the courtyard. "I was on the roof when I heard the shouting and then the shooting," he told investigators from B'Tselem.
"When I looked down and saw soldiers on both sides of the building shooting into the courtyard.
I saw youth trying to flee in every direction and the soldiers approaching Abu Khaleel, who was lying face down. I had just seen them shoot at him from up close when I heard a burst of gunfire on the wall by my side, and I drew back.
Only later did I look again and was able to see the bodies. And then the soldiers continued shooting at the adjacent houses so nobody would come near."
From this and other testimony it became known that the soldiers took cover on either side of the concrete building, and after shouting they opened fire into the courtyard. There were two groups in the courtyard at the time; one group, close to the entrance of Ahadib's house, included Ehdeb, Ateya, Abu Khalil and the Force 17 man, Mansouri.
A few meters from there sat teenagers Abu Zeina and Othman, along with several of their classmates from the high school in Tulkarem refugee camp.
A youth, identified as Tariq Zayit, 17, who was present at the scene said, “We stood and talked. Anas had brought invitations to his brother's wedding, which was two days later, and everyone was in a good mood and eating sunflower seeds. And then we heard the shouts.
Everybody jumped in fright, and I turned around and began running"?, he said, “I felt that my hand was bleeding, but I continued running for my life, later on I heard about what happened to the others"?.
Ateyya Abu Khaleel was killed on the spot, Ehdeb's mother heard the shooting from inside her was, she peeked out after everything was over, and saw her son's body through the door, while Ateyya made it to the alley were here collapsed and died of his wounds.
Mansouri, was the closest to the courtyard door, ran to the alley and threw away his gun, and fled to a nearby fence.
Abu Zeina also jumped there but collapsed in the alley across the way and was taken by the soldiers to Meir Hospital in Kfar Sava, where he later died of his wounds.
After the shooting stopped, additional units of the army invaded the camp as reinforcements.
The Israeli army claimed that the three teens killed in the attack, who lived at most 150 meters away from each other, had connections with fighters and assisted them.
Anas Abu Zeina was a high school student who worked in a vegetable store in the Tulkarem market and had never been arrested. His older brother Ziad is in prison in Israel for membership in Fateh. Neither was Mohammed Othman known to have any connection to an organization, his father works in construction in Israel.
“They could have taken my son into custody easily, if they wanted to"?, Mahmoud Ehdieb's father said,
“he never took part of any activity against the army, never worked with any group, he had been wearing a diaper recently because he was incontinent".
Mahmoud also had epilepsy and received treatment at Rambam Israeli hospital in Haifa.
As for the two adults killed in the attack, the army was not sure of their level of “wantedness".
The family of Ateyya Abu Khaleel is known as Fateh supporters, as do at least half of the families in Tulkarem refugee camp. His father was not considered wanted to the Israeli army.
Abu Khaleel was active with the Islamic Jihad, but he turned himself in to the Palestinian Authority after stopping his activities and used to sleep at police stations for protection. The Islamic Jihad movement confirmed that he left the organization before he was killed by the army.
Meanwhile, the army refused to categorize the five residents who were killed, and did not clearly state whether any of them was armed; the military report opted to generally refer to what was described as “armed men"?, and refused to comment on “confirm kill"?.
The army, and after repeated requests for clarifications on whether any of the killed residents were arrested before, claimed that three of them (Abu Khaleel, Ateyya, and Abu Zeina) were previously arrested by the army.
Also, the army said that “it is impossible to know for sure if there had weapons with them, because the Special Forces were there before the army"?.
Israeli military official spokesman issued the following statement, “The army operated in Tulkarem refugee camp in order to arrested senior wanted fighters of the Islamic Jihad, those fighters launched major attacks in Israel and in the West Bank, and were planning on further attacks"?.
"During the attack, soldiers, uniformed and with army identification markings, surrounded a number of wanted men, some were armed. The soldiers conducted the full procedure for arresting a suspect, called on the wanted men to turn themselves in and fired a shot in the air, but despite the attempt to arrest them, the wanted men began fleeing.
The army also claimed that other armed group fired and hurled explosives and Molotov cocktails at the army, and that “in the course of the arrest, four [terrorists] were killed; a wanted activists and three of his aides"?.
The fifth youth, Ahmad Othman 17, died later on of his wounds at an Israeli hospital, is not known of any involvement with the reistance; even the army did not point his involvement.
On Tuesday, a senior Israeli army source told Haaretz that the undercover Duvdevan soldiers invaded the camp in order to arrest a group of wanted fighters, primarily Abu Khaleel from the Islamic Jihad, and Ribhi Amara member of Hamas.
Amara had already left the courtyard some minutes before the army invaded it.
The army claimed that the had advance knowledge that the men were armed with guns, and the commander of the unit denied reports of confirmed kills, but stated that in one case one of the wounded was shot again, and killed, when the soldiers suspected that he is trying to draw a gun; the man was killed from a distance of ten meters.
Maria 8 sept 2005
Bashir 'Ayad Hamid a-Sufi 18
Youth killed, two injured in Rafah
12 apr 2012, 16:31 , Respect -
Maria 14 sept 2005
Waleed Suleiman Khamaisa 19
Resident killed, six injured in Hebron
Walid Salman Muhammad 'Atiyat Khamaisah 12 apr 2012, 16:31 , Respect -
Maria 16 sept 2005
Shooting and Hitting
By Israeli journalist Shahr Ginossar Yediot Ahronot
‘Another paediatrician and another baker
Got a bullet in the face from a paratroopers unit
All day we search houses and kill children’
From a song of a paratroopers’ unit that participated in Operation Calm Waters in Nablus, beginning of 2004
“I’ll break your camera,” the officer threatened the startled soldiers. “It’s the unit’s camera,” mumbled one of them. “Then I’m the shit of the unit,” said the officer angrily. It is one thing to criticize a military operation; but to document it on video?
This heated exchange took place in whispers, because the camera was set up in the living room of a Palestinian family in Nablus, in a house that the unit had taken over during Operation Calm Waters at the beginning of 2004.
The soldiers, some of whom had already killed unarmed civilians over the course of the operation, had composed a macabre song. Before the commander arrived, the camera had already managed to record them hoarsely singing:
“Another paediatrician and another baker got a bullet in the face from a paratroopers unit. All day we search houses and kill children.”
Afterwards one of them explained: “The contempt for human life bothered me a lot. Battalion commanders, company commanders and brigade commanders can do whatever comes to their heads without anybody checking, it’s really the Wild West.”
The end of the month will mark five years since the outbreak of violent confrontation in the Territories, and the IDF still does not believe in writing regulations for opening fire. Maybe the killing of dozens of innocent civilians, the “Wild West” as that soldier described it, would have been diminished if the soldiers had been given regular open-fire regulations. And if in the past there was an official booklet for open-fire regulations that was passed to every soldier who served in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, it has been buried since the outbreak of the second Intifada in 2000.
The soldiers receive the regulations orally from the commanders in the field, and they vary from sector to sector, unit to unit, commander to commander. This grey area allows for the winking and turning away of eyes, whether from negligence or from contempt for the value of Palestinian life.
The latest reminder was received three weeks ago in the Tul Karem refugee camp. Five Palestinians were killed, and the statement of the IDF spokesman dryly noted that “An IDF force came across a number of armed fugitives who belonged to the Islamic Jihad organization.” The commander of the Nahal Brigade, Col. Roni Numa, clarified:
“None of those killed was an innocent passer-by. Exchanges of fire took place between the force and the terrorists, fire-bombs and charges were thrown in their direction.” Later it turned out that none of the Palestinians was armed, it is doubtful if any of them was a dangerous fugitive, and in any case there were no “exchanges of fire.”
Following the media controversy over the affair an army investigation was conducted – itself an atypical proceeding.
The deadly consequences of the policy of ambiguity regarding shooting at civilians reached the High Court of Justice, which ruled at that time in an appeal by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.
Wild West
Then what are the official open-fire regulations? In December 2004 MK Zehava Golan (Meretz) addressed Security Minister Shaul Mofaz and proposed that written open-fire regulations be distributed to the soldiers, as was done in the past, “so as to ensure that an oral tradition not develop.” At the beginning of the year came a reply from the office of the army’s High Command:
“Due to the changes that are made to the open-fire regulations from time to time, and due to the differences between the sectors, we find that to bring the regulations to the knowledge of the soldiers in the form of a booklet as in the past is not efficient and may even cause mistakes. Therefore the distribution of the regulations will be carried out through the commanders.”
This explanation met with a different reality, in which many “mistakes” took place, as combat soldiers in elite units are beginning to reveal. The soldiers who were interviewed for this article emphasize that the regulations were made judiciously, not under pressure, and were transmitted only orally to the level of the troops. Sometimes their meanings were changed on the way down. “It is obvious why the IDF refuses to publish the regulations in writing, opines Avihai Sharon, 24, until recently a sergeant in the Golani Brigade.
“Nobody could openly stand behind some of them, which became routine in all the sectors. That’s too bad, because according to the declarations, the army is interested in preventing harm to innocent people. Transparency could reduce harm. At least it would clarify what is forbidden. Among us in the Golani, no one knew, and regarding our routine practices for opening fire, to call it the Wild West is a big understatement.”
The results of the shooting are not completely clear to the army. The IDF said in its reply to the judges, that “in addition to those who are fighting against us, many innocent civilians are harmed.” How many innocents? “From the numeric data in the IDF’s possession we cannot vouch for their precision and trustworthiness,” was written in the reply, and the IDF does not deny data about massive harm to civilians. The chief military prosecutor, Lieutenant-Colonel Liron Libman is convinced that it only a matter of exceptional cases.
The judges felt otherwise, and ordered the IDF by next month to set up a mechanism to investigate shootings that kill civilians. This is to prevent the military prosecutor from investigating only internal debriefings that the IDF passes along to him.
The following stories exemplify the opaque situation in which the soldiers find themselves. Some of the facts came from a source in a soldiers’ group called “Breaking the Silence” [shovrim shtika] and were checked by the editorial staff of “7 Days” with eyewitnesses, the IDF spokesman and the Btselem human rights group.
Kill anybody who’s walking on the street
“My team killed six innocent people, or probably innocent,” says “R”, a commander in an elite paratroopers’ unit. “We would joke about it and give them code names: the baker, the woman, the child, the old man, the drummer. Some of them by mistake, but as I see it, they were simply executed on illegal orders.
“There were many nights on which we received orders that whoever we see on the street between two and four in the morning is sentenced to death [dino mavet]. Those were the exact words. We were in Nablus and we started to advance using the ‘worm’ procedure so as not to be exposed. The houses were adjacent and had shared walls. Blow a hole in a wall, pass through a house, blow a hole in a wall, pass through a house. We advanced slowly, until at the end we stopped and came across what is called a ‘controlling house.’
“We set up sniper positions in the windows and waited. One of the marksmen identified a man on the roof. Two roofs from us, a distance of up to seventy metres, at two in the morning, an unarmed man walking on the roof. I saw with my own eyes that the man was not armed. That was also what we reported on the radio. The company commander said ‘take him down.’ Just like that, on the radio, he made a decision and settled on that. You think about that, in the United States there is a death penalty, there are a thousand appeals and convictions and judges. Here a 26-year-old man, my company commander, gave the order from afar to kill him, and the sniper fired and killed him. The company commander defined him as a ‘lookout’.” But what is a ‘lookout’? How does he know what he is? He doesn’t know.
“The next man was the baker. We entered the Old City in Nablus, and as usual the open-fire regulations were that every man walking on the street at night is sentenced to death. The team commander said that it was from the brigade commander. The pretext of course was that there was information from Shabak [the General Security Service, Israel’s internal intelligence agency – trans.]. Really. Shabak knows if Ahmad the baker or Salim the carpenter has to get up to go to work? We did the ‘straw widow’ procedure – enter a house, concentrate the family into one room, then set up sharpshooters’ positions in the windows. In the morning we send out vehicles as bait in the hope of attracting the armed men against us, then we shoot them. The idea is to take down the armed men.
“That night we took over a house in an excellent position, and about four in the morning the sharpshooters’ position identified a man walking with a bag. I saw him on Jami’at al-Kabir Street with the bag in his hand. I went down to report, and the sniper, a friend of mine, was on duty. I reported to the commander who reports to the company commander. The order was ‘take him down.’ And so a man fell, 70 metres from his house.”
Two residents were witnesses to this incident, which happened under the window of As’ad Hanun, age 50, from Nablus. “I woke up to the sound of a shot,” she said a few months ago to members of Btselem. “After the shot I heard yelling from the street, ‘brother, I’m wounded, people, I’m wounded.’ The voice sounded very close and I was afraid to look out. After a few minutes I opened the window. The street was dark and I did not see the wounded man, but I saw the neighbours’ son. I asked him who was wounded, and he answered that it was a young man and he was in front of him. Immediately I went down to try to help. The wounded man was sitting on the ground and wearing a white hat.”
A soldier from the unit, who watched from the house opposite, continues. “Right away the jeep from the command post came, and the company commander got down and carried out a barbaric kill-verification just like that, with grenades, and he even sprayed the body with bullets. It’s a good thing that the IDF spokesman denies that there’s such a procedure. Then they went and checked what he had in the bag. What do you think was there? Bread.”
“I saw an Israeli jeep approaching,” the neighbour also related. “I was afraid they’d shoot so I went back into the alley. In the meantime the street was lit up with flares that the army lit; afterwards I heard about 10-12 consecutive shots. I did not see who was shooting, but I heard the wounded man yelling. After the last shot I heard the sound of an explosion and after that I heard nothing, no shooting and no yelling. It was clear that he was dead because he did not show any sign of life.” The neighbour identified the killed man as ‘Ala al-Din, an employee of the a-Silawi bakery. “In the bag,” she corrects, “were work clothes, not bread.”
“K”, a soldier in the armoured corps, testifies that he received a similar order in the Gaza Strip. “We went out in a tank from the base after mortars were fired at the settlements and we drove on the Tancher Highway until we entered Deir al-Balah. On the radio the battalion commander announced the open-fire orders: every person we see on the street, shoot to kill. Without asking questions. I remember that when we went in, somebody was running there, unarmed, and right away we shot him without any particular reason until he was definitely dead. That is to say, he fell into the bushes and afterwards we emptied a great many bullets into him. In the company we were not excited about killing, but we were happy that there was action [“action” said in English – trans.]. We didn’t think in terms of right or not.”
“A”, a commander in another paratroopers’ unit, served in Jenin and says that he received orders along the lines of “no innocent person has any reason to walk around on the street during the night hours.” As he says, “in every big city there are people who walk on the street, even at three in the morning. So is it right to kill them from a distance?”
The reply of the military prosecutor, Lt.-Col. Liron Libman: “There are definite rules that we shoot only at combatants. The words appear in the rules and are supposed to pass to the soldiers through their commanders. According to international law it is permitted to shoot to kill not only when they shoot at you. There is a concept called anticipatory self-defence.”
[b]The drummer[/b]
As dawn approached, one night during the month of Ramadan, a Nablus resident walked the streets with a drum to wake up the occupants before the fast. “No one told us that in the morning in Ramadan there was a custom like that,” says “R”. “We saw him with something in his hand, and like in most of the times an expedited arrest procedure was carried out. That is, we yell ‘stop, stop’ quickly, according to the protocol, right away we shoot in the air, and if he doesn’t stop, we shoot to kill. No shooting at the legs.”
The terrified drummer started to flee and entered an alley, relates “R”, and they entered into pursuit of him until in the end they killed him in one of the alleys. “They did a kill-verification on him according to the procedures they knew, grenades and afterwards a bullet in the head. Only then did it emerge that what he was holding in his hand was a drum. Only afterwards, in the investigation, did we learn that they wake people up that way during Ramadan. OK, so we, the simple soldiers, didn’t know. But even at the Brigade HQ nobody knew? Could be that they should have been more careful, or moderated the open-fire regulations.”
According to the IDF spokesman, the “drummer” was Jihad al-Natur, 24 years old when he died. An officer at the Judge Advocate-General’s office stated in reply that the death of the “drummer” was investigated, “and one of the lessons was that it is also important to know about Ramadan and the drums.”
The military prosecutor says that it was a mishap. “The force came across some people who were holding something that looked unusual to them, there was fear of attack, they warned and called to stop, and the people started to flee. It turned out that another force was mistakenly positioned in front of the first force, and it could even have ended up with the death of a soldier. Mistakes can happen during operations, but we conducted a serious check. We did not say, OK, never mind, a Palestinian has been killed.” Judicial proceedings? There is no place for that, according to Libman, “because the soldiers subjectively acted under the assumption that they had been attacked. We have not heard of kill-verification. I am hearing the allegation for the first time, and I cannot comment.”
Live fire at the knees of a child
The unit of “M”, a soldier in the Giv’ati Brigade, was stationed close to the Ganei-Tal settlement. “They call it ‘easy’ when they shoot live bullets at the knees of a child. There is a long line that separates the Jewish settlements from Khan Younis [in the Gaza Strip] and in parts of it there is no fence. In front of Ganei-Tal was a dune, which was a dead zone regarding our ability to observe it. In order that they not penetrate into the settlements, we created a situation in which the Palestinians knew exactly how far they could go from the edge of the neighbourhood.
“The top of the dune was a garbage dump next to which children played every day. When the ball falls, we execute deterrent fire to keep them back, first in the air and then maximum 50 metres from them so they go back. That was the procedure. For a long period it was like cat-and-mouse and it lasted a long time, until one day my assistant company commander decided that he had had enough, that it was not effective, that the children played there too much. He told us, ‘next time, call me.’ He came, and fired from a modified M-16 rifle with a telescopic sight, at the leg of one of the children. A boy who definitely had nothing on him, there wasn’t even a suspicion that he had anything, besides the fact that he had crossed some imaginary line. To shoot a nine- or ten-year-old boy who was playing football and innocently chasing the ball, and make him disabled for his whole life, in my eyes that is more than problematic. The children ran away as long as their breath was in them, and adults came to evacuate the boy who was lying there. They understood the aggressive message. For a few days at least, the children were afraid to cross the line.”
“R”, from the paratroopers, who spoke before about the ““lookout”” and the “baker,” describes – this time testifying to what he heard on the communications system – what happened to the “child.” It happened when the Brigade Commander in Nablus was replaced, and “there was an operation that we jokingly called ‘the Brigade Commander’s horror show.’ At the last stage there were roadblock operations with plastic [barriers] that we called ‘New Jerseys.’ All the time the children, the ones who throw stones, would come and move them. It was a total mess. Then the battalion commander gave everyone an order on the radio: whoever touches a ‘New Jersey,’ shoot him in the legs. Live fire.
“In my Abir [military vehicle], we said right away, ‘is he cracked or what?’ Somebody touches a barrier and you shoot him in the legs? For sure he’s just showing off. But no. That battalion commander was actually a good guy. It was very important to him to set a personal example. At the checkpoint, where I was not personally but there were friends of mine there, the man saw a boy and aimed at his legs, but you know how it is with the commanders, they have so many meetings they don’t have time to calibrate their weapons. He missed the leg and hit the boy in the chest. I was not there, but when we returned from the operation to the base everybody was talking about it. They all said that the battalion commander shot a boy and were talking like he was a ‘murderer of children.’ Was the boy killed? I assume nobody went and checked for a pulse, but very few children survive a bullet in the chest.”
In the unit they give a confused explanation. “The battalion commander did not miss but deliberately shot to kill,” said one of the officers confidently. “We talked to him and he checked the incident personally. His gun was definitely calibrated, and everything was done with the intention to kill. It was a Fatah activist, Hani Qandul, 17. He was supervising a serious disturbance that was endangering the soldiers. So he was shot dead. The orders permit the shooting to death of a chief instigator.”
But Qandul’s ID card reveals that he was only 13 and a half when he died. Was this the dangerous activist that the battalion commander deliberately shot to death? It turns out that Hani Qandul was killed on another occasion; an eyewitness described it to a Btselem investigator, a short time after the incident. “Hani, who was 18, stood 20 metres from us, with his seven-year-old brother. Suddenly I heard shooting (…) I saw Hani fall to the ground.”
If so, the battalion commander killed Qandul in May 2004. And what about the “child” that the soldier “R” speaks of? “We don’t know of a shooting like that or of a child who was killed,” it was reported from the unit. “If there was an order to shoot at the legs, it was the result of intelligence information of intention to endanger the soldiers.” Operation Calm Waters ended with the deaths of five minors.
The Military Prosecutor responds: “Too bad the soldier told you that. If he had reported to us, it would have been possible to comment with more precision. I have not heard specifically about ‘easy.’ ”
Everyone who is standing on a roof
“A”, an officer in a “Kingfisher” [Shaldag] unit, was posted in Rafah during Operation Rainbow in May of last year, and “I had direct access to the brigade commander. I was in Command Group 2 of Pinky (Pinhas Zwartz, commander of the Southern Brigade at the time – S. G.). At the beginning of the operation I commanded a team, and a friend of mine commanded another team, and the mission was to do ‘straw widows’ [to occupy Palestinian homes] and to put snipers on the upper floors of the houses.
“When we entered, we saw that there was really no danger. It was an uncongested built-up area with greenhouses, in front were our tanks and a D-9 [Caterpillar bulldozer] that was destroying houses and greenhouses. We were there more than 24 hours and we didn’t see any armed people, and it was quite boring for everybody, if one can say that. But the whole time, about every hour or two hours, they called us from the command post to ask why we were not shooting. But our feeling of danger was very low. No one shot at us, we were not in a state of anxiety.
“The open-fire regulations were clear enough: every Palestinian on a roof is supposedly a ‘lookout,’ and the snipers shoot him right away. And every civilian on the street who bends towards the ground is suspected of setting explosives and they shoot him. At one point we saw somebody standing on a roof. Just standing, without binoculars. There was no reason to assume that he was on the lookout rather than just going up for a breath of air. I got authorization to shoot – and we hesitated. I agreed to second it. To this day I ask myself why.
“The procedure was that the three snipers shoot together. He got two bullets in the chest and died on the spot. Afterwards we heard ambulances. Hand on heart I had a feeling that it was not OK, but the guys pressured me and I backed down. I failed. That time I did not withstand the pressure from above and from below. There were three snipers who had spent a lot of time training and wanted to put their skills into practice. At the end of the day an officer from the brigade operations branch did a cursory investigation, about two minutes. The question of whether the shooting was justified at all did not come up. Afterwards I and four other officers who saw similar incidents were so surprised, that we decided to write a letter to the corps commander, with a copy to the Chief of Staff, what is really going on.” At the end of Operation Rainbow the IDF spokesman announced that dozens of armed men were killed as well as 14 civilians.
At the Southern Command they know that the order to open fire on every person on a roof is not legal. The matter had been clarified a half year before, when a soldier in the Paratroopers refused a similar order. “I served in Netzarim, in which there are dozens of guard posts,” relates Zafrir Goldberg. “At the briefing they explained the open-fire regulations and I was shocked. I talked to the company commander, and he said that he was sorry, but those were the regulations. I also talked to an officer in the Intelligence Branch and the assistant battalion commander.” The Association for Civil Rights contacted the Judge Advocate-General and warned about a “patently illegal order.” At the beginning of January 2004 the Judge Advocate-General replied: “We have instructed the command elements to ensure that the briefings given to soldiers do not include such an order.”
The reply of the military prosecutor: “International law permits attacking any combatant, including those who are observing and guiding. The question is how to determine whether someone is a lookout and not someone who went up to hang laundry. I do not know the specific incidents, but theoretically it could be that a soldier who shoots does not see the whole picture. The requirement for authorization from a higher level teaches a certain degree of caution. A soldier who identifies an armed terrorist shoots without authorization.”
The do not identify. They shoot
The unit of “K”, a soldier in the Haredi Nahal Brigade, was positioned above Ramallah in order to dominate the al-Bireh neighbourhood. According to him, “In our position it was relatively quiet, occasionally there was shooting in our direction from a Kalashnikov. It was ineffective fire because of the distance and because the shooters were below. But it was clear that according to the regulations we were not to be passive but were supposed to shoot back and ‘return fire to the sources of fire.’ The problem was there was no chance of identifying the sources of fire, and in practice we returned ‘general’ fire, in the direction of the houses.
“At first, whenever there was fire towards our position, we immediately went into the return-fire procedure: we fired wildly towards the neighbourhood. We sent down a rain of MAG [machine-gun] bullets and thousands of M-16 rounds without identifying a source of fire. It was clear to me that it was not logical. I went to the company commander and told him that it was a waste of money. Isn’t it pointless? I didn’t explain to him that there were residents and children living there, because everyone understood that. I only said that it cost a fortune. I suggested that they bring snipers who would try to take them down one by one.
“The first houses were about 600 metres from us. The source of the shooting was further back, 900 metres from us. There was no chance that they would hit us with a Kalashnikov, and for sure there was no chance of hitting them with return fire. After a month and a half the situation changed: when they didn’t shoot at us, we got bored. So the soldiers decided that we wouldn’t wait for them to start. They said something like today it’s our turn to start, and we’ll shoot first.
“We called it ‘initiated’ [yezuma]. It was a kind of routine that the whole company knew, that happened dozens of times. Everybody recognized the word ‘initiated’, and the meaning – just start freely spraying bullets towards al-Bireh. Just shooting, and when possible, towards the windows when they were open. Obviously if anybody complained, we would say that the Palestinians fired first. Every day they would empty several ‘bruces’ (wooden ammunition boxes – S. G.) of ammunition. There were times when I saw ambulances go in, but I didn’t know what happened. On at least one occasion I know that we wounded a girl, because I saw an ambulance, and a day later there was a report in the newspaper that the IDF returned fire to sources of fire in al-Bireh, and that there was a girl whose leg we took off.
“The staff knew everything and gave us to understand that there was no problem. For example, when we had to calibrate our weapons, the Company Commander encouraged us to aim at the fluorescent lights of the mosque. I’m sure that the Brigade Commander knew about it as well, because at least once they reported to him, after an officer from another unit visited the position and reported to him. He heard shots, and asked the soldier what he was doing. The soldier said that they had shot at him, and the officer said, ‘hold it, I heard, don’t lie.’ He reported it to the brigade commander, and they talked about it for several days, but nothing happened. That whole period we were in contact with the people from the Pisgot settlement, whom we were guarding, and after a week they told us that the matter was closed, that an officer like him won’t last long in the brigade.”
The IDF spokesman, in an initial reply: “Commanders of the unit were replaced and retired and it is hard to get comments from them.” IDF spokesman in a second reply: “According to the commanders, they were not there at that time.” Lt.-Col. Libman: “There are no open-fire rules ‘just to shoot’. There are regulations that deal with shooting at an unidentified source of fire, which are subordinate to the basic rule that you do not shoot at a place where you endanger a civilian population. The regulation is supposed to be transmitted to the soldiers at briefings and before all actions and it makes clear what is forbidden.”
“M”, from the Giv’ati Brigade, tells of those unwritten procedures, when he served in a position in front of Rafah in May 2004. At the edge of the neighbourhood was an abandoned house from which armed men occasionally opened fire, and the soldiers returned fire, including with a 40 mm grenade-launcher. “The problem is that the way to shoot well with a grenade-launcher is the way they used to do it with mortars in the armoured corps. First you miss, identify where it landed, and adjust and improve accordingly. Every hundred metres of divergence is a few millimetres to move the gun. In a discharge there are about 20 grenades. Every time you shoot to the right of the building, you hit the neighbourhood. That’s also how they calibrate the machine-gun. It’s clear that it’s impossible to hit right away, and of course there were live grenades that fell in the middle of the neighbourhood. I remember times we saw ambulances going in after our shooting. Why did they go in? I don’t believe that somebody in the neighbourhood had a heart attack right then. Logically we simply hit people. That shooting was done regularly and received all the authorizations from above, at least up to the division commander.”
Shooting at the population also happened in Nablus, as related by soldiers from a paratroopers’ unit. “R” recalls a young woman of 24 who was shot in the neck, due to what he describes as his and his friends’ “irresponsible shooting” towards houses, and an old man who took a bullet in the belly, that he himself apparently fired in similar circumstances. He too describes a reality in which they believe in the sentence: “You must return fire to the sources of fire,” even when nobody identifies them. “In practice everybody shoots freely in 360 degrees at [rooftop] water reservoirs and at everybody whom maybe they identify in the windows.”
“To say that we were under pressure is nonsense,” says “R” in reply to the necessary question. “In my opinion most of the shots that I and my friends fired were not because of nervousness and fear, but from the desire to put an X on our guns. Everyone who was a combat soldier knows how much he wants that X on the gun. Without that you’re not a man. I have one in my team with five X’s, and he doesn’t care. They tell you, ‘listen, they’re not na?ve. What was she standing at the window for?’ or ‘an unfortunate mishap.’ In my opinion it’s just the result of irresponsible shooting. Needless and senseless killing.
”The Chief Military Prosecutor: “come and testify”
“Allegations of reckless or illegal shooting are not correct,” says the chief military prosecutor, Lt.-Col. Liron Libman. “It’s only a case of exceptional incidents at the local level. In fact there was a dilemma about whether to distribute the regulations in writing. But the reality is not like in the past. Precisely because we had expanded the range of tools available to commanders, we did not want a soldier to get a paper from which he would understand that we allow him everything that is allowed to commanders. We wanted him to hear from the commander exactly what is permitted to him. Talking and deliberating out loud are assimilated and get absorbed more than a piece of paper. If we passed out a piece of paper, they could claim that we were just covering our tails. The regulations in fact are not transmitted in a booklet, but they are transmitted to the soldiers in briefings, before every operational action. In addition, rules of conduct in the Territories are distributed in writing, from which it emerges clearly that it is forbidden to harm civilians. We act in accordance with international law and also according to the practices of other states in similar conflicts.
“You ask how despite the fact that there are rules, people diverge from them? You are asking me precisely why I will always have work as a prosecutor. Because people are people. And there are 139 investigations of incidents of shooting, including some convictions. The more relevant question is if it is on an unreasonable scale, and here you are walking on less firm ground. Thousands are serving in the Territories, with a great intensity of actions against terrorism, shooting at soldiers, at civilians who are circulating in the Territories, suicide terrorists with explosive belts who are caught at checkpoints and other places. Every innocent life is precious, but if you check how many have been harmed, check if the exceptions are unreasonable. And I, in the place where I am, do not think so. There are exceptions, our job is to find them, do deal with them, but I think that the common soldier and commander have heads on their shoulders, have sound minds, have consciences and act according to the rules.
“It is important for soldiers to come to us with testimony about apparently criminal acts. I see in it an important report that will be investigated. It is important to us not to be detached and to say that everything is OK. We are in daily contact with human rights organizations. Every incident is checked with the commanders in the field, who investigate if there was an IDF force on the scene and how it acted. There are cases in which the IDF simply was not in the area, and in the investigations there are sometimes replies that explain why the injury to innocents, as distressing as it is, was unavoidable. And sometimes people are put on trial. “The judicial process is very hard in those investigations. It is a trial with all its intricacies, with all the rights accorded to the accused, according to the rules of evidence, and it is not simple. We request cooperation from the Palestinians, sometimes with success. There are cases in which those killed or wounded arrive at an Israeli hospital, and then the prosecution has more of a chance.”
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/cur_sit/shooting.html 12 apr 2012, 16:31 , Respect -
Maria 16 sept 2005
Baha' Fawwaz Thiab, 22
Resident killed as army jeep crushed into his vehicle
12 apr 2012, 16:31 , Respect -
Maria 19 sept 2005
Special report: No need to receive open-fire orders
"Another pediatric, and a baker where shot in the face by the Paratroopers Unit, we broke into homes all day long, and killed children".
An Introduction of a report published by the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reads.
These words are part of a song the Israeli military units which operated in Nablus since the beginning of 2004, keep singing.
“By the end of this month, the sever clashes will finish their fifth year, yet the army does not believe that it needs written orders to open fire"?, the report reads.
Since the beginning of Al Aqsa Intifada late 2000, soldiers started receiving verbal orders to open fire at the Palestinians; these orders differ from one area to another, from one officer to another.
The report also included the case of the five residents who were killed in Tulkarem refugee camp recently, the army claimed they were armed, but it appeared that they were unarmed and not members of any faction.
Several petitions were filed to the Israeli High Court of Justice regarding these orders; the army admits that 70 women were killed, 11 children under the age of two, 90 children 3-12 years old, and 203 children 12-17 years old were among the Palestinians killed as a result of this policy.
The army said that the orders differ from one area to another, and that direct orders given to the soldiers in the past proved to be ineffective, and involve mistakes, therefore firing orders became the responsibility of field officers.
An military officer of one of the operating units said that his squad killed six innocent civilians, “We killed them and laughed at them, we killed a baker, a women, and old man, and others, they were all killed by illegal orders", he said, “We received dozens of shoot-to-kill orders, to shoot and kill any moving object".
“In Nablus, we used to break into the homes which are attached to each other; we used to explode the walls in order to cross from one home to another, one of our snipers noticed a Palestinian man walking in a street at 2 A.M, he was unarmed, but we were instructed to kill him, because he might be someone who is monitoring our movements, and we did, we killed him"?.
The same officer said that in another incident, their next victim was a baker, Ala Ed-Deen from Nablus.
“We saw him carrying a bag in his hand; we received direct orders to kill him although he was far away from us and there was no way to tell if he is armed, he wasn't armed after all, he was carrying clothes"?.
The officer also said that he and soldiers of his unit received several similar orders in the Gaza Strip.
Soldier? said that a military unit, backed up by tanks, invaded Dir Al Balah in the Gaza Strip; the unit received direct orders to “kill any moving object".
“We noticed a resident running, he was unarmed, but we shot him and stood close to his corpse and emptied our magazines in his body, we were happy to have this sort of excitement"?.
Soldier: from the paratroopers division, said that he and his unit received similar orders in Jenin.
“Our orders were clear, an ordinary civilian should not be present in the street at night, he should be killed instantly", the soldier said.
Soldier? also said that he and his unit did not know anything about Jihad Al Nathour, 24, who walks in the street of Nablus at dawn during Ramadan month, with a drum in his hand calling the residents for prayers.
“We saw him in the street with a drum in his hand, he ran away as we ordered him to stop"?, the soldier said, “we managed to kill him in an alley in Nablus, we hurled grenades at him, and then we shot him in the head to make sure he is dead"?.
Also, added that while his unit was firing at civilians in Nablus, a 24-year-old woman was shot in her head, and an old man was injured in his stomach.
The Israeli military prosecutor said that the army cannot punish the soldiers who killed Al Nathour, “There was a mistake"? he said, “the soldiers could not know what was he carrying, when he ran away they fired at him, but I did not receive any report of a confirm kill case"?.
Soldiers?, member of the Givati brigade which was operating near Ghani Tal settlement, in the Gaza Strip, said that there is a long line separating the settlement from Khan Younis.
“Palestinian children used to play football, whenever their ball was accidentally kicked at our side we used to fire warning shots at them, it was like cat and mouse game?, M said, “Once, a nine-year-old child was running after the ball, we shot him in his knee, and now he will live disabled for the rest of his life"
Member of the paratrooper division said that he heard through the wireless that a child was shot injured in Nablus, “The commander said that he accidentally shot the child in his leg, he wanted to shoot him in his chest! R said, “He directly shot him because he considered him a threat, and a resident who practices incitement"?.
The child was identified as Hani Qandoul, 13 years old; he was killed during an operation in the city which left five Palestinian children dead.
Another soldier from the “Shildagh" division, which was operating in Rafah, said that in June 2004, his unit “was bored because Palestinian resistance groups did not fire at them on that day"?.
“We did not see any armed fighter, no shootings were reported in the area"?, the soldiers said, “so, we decided to level homes and hothouses there".
“Our orders were clear, every Palestinian on the rooftop of his home should be killed, he might be monitoring us after all"?, the soldier added, “every resident in the street is a possible suspect, and he might be there to place some explosives, so he should be killed"
“Once we saw a Palestinian resident on the rooftop of his home, we received orders to kill him, so three snipers fired at him, and killed him"?, the soldier stated, “we shot him in his chest, our snipers are well trained, and they wanted to show how good they are in hitting their targets"?, he added.
Also, a soldier known as “K"? from the Nahal Haridi brigade said that his brigade was positioned near Ramallah, to guard the settlement of Psagot, and to monitor Al Biereh city.
“The situation was relatively calm, we were instructed to fire back at any source of fire, we were at least 600 meters away from Palestinian populated areas, K said, “We were fired at, but couldn't see the source of fire clearly, so we started shooting at a Palestinian home, we targeted the windows, the doors, and everywhere".
Another Givati soldier said that he unit was operating near Rafah in June 2004.
“We used to train by firing at an abandoned home, we used to throw grenades too, and sometimes we used rocket launchers"?, he said, “Whenever we missed our target, our shells and bullets hit Palestinian populated areas, each firing round included 20 grenades"?.
“Several civilians were hit, homes and Palestinian properties, but these trainings were officials approved by the army's higher command.
http://www.imemc.org/article/13933 12 apr 2012, 16:32 , Respect -
Maria 22 sept 2005
'Alaa' 'Adnan 'Abd al-'Aziz Hantuli 19
Soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian Youth near Jenin
'Alaa' 'Adnan 'Abd al-'Aziz Hantuli 12 apr 2012, 16:32 , Respect -
Maria 22 sept 2005
Fadel Khaleel Abu Arram, 14
Child dies of wounds sustained last month
A Palestinian medical source at Al Ahli Hospital in the West Bank city of Hebron, reported that one child died of wounds sustained last month after an explosive charge fired by the army exploded sometime after impact.
The child, Fadel Khaleel Abu Arram, 14, from Yatta village near Hebron, was seriously injured in Al Mosafer area, east of Yatta village, near Hebron, on August 17, 2005.
The brother of Fadel was also injured in the blast.
The explosion took place near an Israeli military camp, close to a Palestinian area, used by the soldiers for training purposes.
The child was first transferred to Soroka Israeli hospital in Beer Shiva, and then was moved to Al Ahli hospital in Hebron; Abu Arram remained in a critical condition at the Intensive Care Unit until he died on Thursday morning.
10 dec 2005
Haaretz: Phosphoric bombs killed resident Fadel Khaleel Abu Arram in Hebron
12 apr 2012, 16:32 , Respect -
Maria 12 apr 2012, 16:32 , Respect -
Maria 23 sept 2005
Hisham Mohammed Kahlout 30
12 apr 2012, 16:32 , Respect -
Maria 23 sept 2005
Jamil Naziyeh Jamil Ja'ar, 23
Sa'id Taleb Sa'id al-Ashqar, 23
Raed Ahmad Mahmoud 'Ajaj, 29
Three fighters killed near Tulkarem
Said Al Ashqar
Raed Al Ashqar 12 apr 2012, 16:32 , Respect -
Maria 24 sept 2005
Rawad Fathi Rabah Farahat 17Nafeth Mohammed Abu Hussein 28
Israeli Air Force strikes Gaza, four killed, nine injured
Mofaz orders army to prepare to attack Gaza
(Rawad Farhat) 12 apr 2012, 16:32 , Respect -
Maria 24 sept 2005
Mohammad Al Deery
Osama Abu Assy
Mahmoud Al Dareemly
12 apr 2012, 16:32 , Respect -
Maria 25 sept 2005
Mohammad Sheikh Khalil 32
Nasser Muhammad Hassan Barhum 37
Army assassinates Islamic Jihad leader
12 apr 2012, 16:32 , Respect -
Maria 27 sept 2005
Army spokesperson: We will not hesitate in shelling civilian areas
Mofaz: we will strike Gaza, create a new reality - 28 sept 2005
Israeli Army strikes several locations in Gaza Strip
Maria 29 sept 2005
Samer Ahmad 'Abdallah a-S'adi 24
Samer Yihya Saber Shalby 25
Nedal Muhammad Ibrahim Khalluf 35
Zakaria Al-Zubeidi: Hell with the Calm-
Maria 30 sept 2005
Odai Said Tantawi, 13
Child shot and killed in Askar refugee camp
A local source in Nablus reported that one Palestinian child was shot and killed in Askar refugee camp, east of the West Bank city of Nablus, after the Israeli army invaded it following the Friday prayers.
The Maan News Agency reported that soldiers, supported by several armored vehicles and jeeps, clashed with dozens of residents in the camp and fired round of live ammunition and rubber-coated bullets.
One child identified as Adi Khaled Tantawi, 13, died after suffering a gunshot injury in his heart. Tantawi died shortly before arriving at the hospital.
Soldiers surrounded the camp, and barred the residents from entering or leaving it.
Earlier on Friday at dawn, Israeli soldiers invaded Balata refugee camp, in Nablus, and killed two resistance fighters. Two other fighters wee injured, one seriously.
Soldiers exchanged fire with fighter of Al Aqsa brigades, the military wing of Fateh, after surrounding Balata and invading it.
The two fighters killed in the attack were identified as, Al Teerawi, one of the prominent leaders of the brigades in Nablus, and Jamal Jeremy.
http://www.imemc.org/article/14188
Maria 30 sept 2005
Jamal Ibrahim Mahmoud al-Jarmi 20
'Alaa' Yusef Muhammad a-Tirawi 28
Two fighters killed in Balata refugee camp