Reply #141: More evidence to support the op's factual claims - [View All]

[Englander]

'Snipers with children in their sights

Chris McGreal
Tuesday June 28, 2005
The Guardian

It was the shooting of Asma Mughayar that swept away any lingering doubts I had about how it is the Israeli army kills so many Palestinian children and civilians.

Asma, 16, and her younger brother, Ahmad, were collecting laundry from the roof of their home in the south of the Gaza Strip in May last year when they were felled by an Israeli army sniper. Neither child was armed or threatening the soldier, who fired unseen through a hole punched in the wall of a neighbouring block of flats.

The army said the two were blown up by a Palestinian bomb planted to kill soldiers. The corpses offered a different account. In Rafah's morgue, Asma lay with a single bullet hole through her temple; her 13-year-old brother had a lone shot to his forehead. There were no other injuries, certainly none consistent with a blast.

Confronted with this, the army changed its account and claimed the pair were killed by a Palestinian, though there was persuasive evidence pointing to the Israeli sniper's nest. What the military did not do was ask its soldiers why they gave a false account of the deaths or speak to the children's parents or any other witnesses.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1516362,00.html

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'Israel and the Occupied Territories

Covering events from January - December 2004
The Israeli army killed more than 700 Palestinians, including some 150 children. Most were killed unlawfully — in reckless shooting, shelling and air strikes in civilian residential areas; in extrajudicial executions; and as a result of excessive use of force. Palestinian armed groups killed 109 Israelis — 67 of them civilians and including eight children — in suicide bombings, shootings and mortar attacks. Stringent restrictions imposed by the Israeli army on the movement of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories caused widespread poverty and unemployment and hindered access to health and education facilities. The Israeli army destroyed several hundred Palestinian homes, large areas of agricultural land, and infrastructure networks. Israel continued to expand illegal settlements and to build a fence/wall through the West Bank, confining Palestinians in isolated enclaves cut off from their land and essential services in nearby towns and villages. Israeli settlers increased their attacks against Palestinians and their property and against international human rights workers. Certain abuses committed by the Israeli army constituted crimes against humanity and war crimes, including unlawful killings; extensive and wanton destruction of property; obstruction of medical assistance and targeting of medical personnel; torture; and the use of Palestinians as “human shields”. The deliberate targeting of civilians by Palestinian armed groups constituted crimes against humanity.

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Killings and attacks by the Israeli army

The Israeli army killed around 700 Palestinians, including some 150 children, in the Occupied
Territories, most of them unlawfully. Many were killed in deliberate as well as reckless shooting, shelling and bombardment of densely populated residential areas or as a result of excessive use of force. Some 120 Palestinians were killed in extrajudicial executions, including more than 30 bystanders, of whom four were children. Others were killed in armed clashes with Israeli soldiers. Thousands of others were injured.

* Four Palestinian schoolgirls were shot dead by the Israeli army in their classrooms or walking to school in the Gaza Strip in September and October. Raghda Adnan al-Assar and Ghadeer Jaber Mukhaymar, aged 10 and nine, were shot dead by Israeli soldiers while sitting at their desks in UN schools in Khan Yunis refugee camp. Eight-year-old Rania Iyad Aram was shot dead by Israeli soldiers as she was walking to school. On 5 October Israeli soldiers shot dead 13-year-old Iman al-Hams near her school in Rafah. According to an army communication recording of the incident and testimonies of soldiers, a commander repeatedly shot the child at close range even though soldiers had identified her as “a little girl... scared to death”. The commander was charged with illegal use of his weapon, obstructing justice, improper use of authority and unbecoming conduct. He was not charged with murder or manslaughter.
* On 22 March, Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, a 66-year-old wheelchair-bound paraplegic, was assassinated in an Israeli air-strike as he was leaving a mosque in Gaza City after dawn prayers. Seven other Palestinians were killed in the attack and at least 17 were injured. His successor, ‘Abd al-’Aziz al-Rantisi, was likewise assassinated by the Israeli army on 17 April.
* Ten-year-old Walid Naji Abu Qamar, 11-year-old Mubarak Salim al-Hashash, 13-year-old Mahmoud Tariq Mansour and five others were killed on 19 May in Rafah in the Gaza Strip when the Israeli army opened fire with tank shells and a helicopter-launched missile on a non-violent demonstration. Dozens of other unarmed demonstrators were also wounded in the attack.

http://web.amnesty.org/report2005/isr-summary-eng

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'No End in Sight
Jon Elmer Interviews Gideon Levy

September 18, 2003

>snip

Elmer: Latest figures indicate that more than 10,000 children have been injured in the intifada (Palestine Monitor). Veteran war correspondent Chris Hedges wrote in his "Gaza Diaries" of Israeli soldiers taunting children in Khan Yunis, then shooting them: "Children have been shot in other conflicts I have covered - death squads gunned them down in el Salvador and Guatemala, mothers with infants were lined up and massacred in Algeria, and Serb snipers put children in their sights and watched them crumble on the pavement in Sarajevo - but I have never before watched soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport" (Gaza Diaries, Harpers, October 2001). Can you comment on this with your experience as a reporter in this conflict?

Levy: Unfortunately it's not far from the truth. Most Israeli soldiers don't treat the Palestinians as human beings. For them, they are the enemy - all of them. They treat them like animals. When you treat them like animals, the difference between a child and an adult... there is no difference. There is no difference between a young cow and an old cow, you treat them the same. Once you've lost your human touch, your attitude to treat them as human beings, then the difference between children and adults has vanished.

And here we stand. I see these things every week, again and again. And it's inevitable. As long as the occupation goes on, these things are inevitable.

Elmer: Israeli forces have beaten, arrested, imprisoned, shot dozens and killed five journalists since the beginning of the intifada, all of whom were clearly identifiable as journalists - James Miller was seen on AP footage carrying a white flag and yelling that he was a British journalist when he was shot point-blank by Israeli forces in Gaza. When Rafaelle Ciriello was killed during Operation Defensive Shield, the International Press Institute said that it was "part of a concerted strategy by the Israeli army to control reports on the recent surge in armed hostilities in the region". Are Israelis murdering journalists?

Levy: No, I think the Israeli soldiers are just trigger-happy. They don't direct it especially journalists. They kill anything that walks – it can be journalists, it can be international solidarity activists, and it can be any Palestinian.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=22&ItemID=4215

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