Amnesty International
Video: Amnesty shows Israel killed journalist, maimed another, in Lebanon
Warning: distressing footage – forensic examination of footage from 13 October attack, on Lebanese territory, on clearly marked journalists, shows Israeli tank fired once, then again less than a minute later; Amnesty calls for war crime investigation
Detailed analysis by Amnesty International of footage surrounding a 13 October attack on a group of clearly marked journalists shows Israeli tank crew knowingly fired two shells, less than a minute apart, at the group as they filmed in southern Lebanon. One journalist was killed and the other lost her leg in the needless and deliberate assault.
Amnesty has now published its findings under the title “Deadly Israeli Attack on Journalists In Lebanon Must be Investigated as a War Crime”:
Israel has relentlessly bombed schools, hospitals, news offices and homes in Gaza, killing thousands of civilians, mostly women and children – and at least sixty-eight journalists, more than were killed in any other conflict since 1990. Now it has been shown to have committed another wanton Lebanon attack on journalists doing their job, taking another life and wrecking more. The far-right Israeli regime is out of control and flouting international law, while lying wildly and incompetently to try to salvage its public image.
The same story has been seen time and again, including the murder of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, targeted last year as she covered an Israeli raid on the Jenin refugee camp in West Bank.
Despite this, western politicians continue to cover for Netanyahu and his fellow war criminals – and UK journalists appear to be ignoring the murder of their colleagues.
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Hamas Uses Human Shields? The Evidence
Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields. You’ve heard the claim echoed ad nauseam in Western corporate media. Yet numerous reports from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other human rights groups have found the allegations, which are brought to bear by Israeli officials nearly every time Gaza hits the news, to not only be untrue, they’ve discovered that Israel itself has consistently engaged in wanton use of Palestinian civilians, including children, as human shields.
In 2014, Amnesty International said of allegations that Hamas was using human shields:
Amnesty International is monitoring and investigating such reports, but does not have evidence at this point that Palestinian civilians have been intentionally used by Hamas or Palestinian armed groups during the current hostilities to “shield” specific locations or military personnel or equipment from Israeli attacks. In previous conflicts Amnesty International has documented that Palestinian armed groups have stored munitions in and fired indiscriminate rockets from residential areas in the Gaza Strip in violation of international humanitarian law. Reports have also emerged during the current conflict of Hamas urging residents to ignore Israeli warnings to evacuate. However, these calls may have been motivated by a desire to minimize panic and displacement, in any case, such statements are not the same as directing specific civilians to remain in their homes as “human shields” for fighters, munitions, or military equipment. Under international humanitarian law even if “human shields” are being used Israel’s obligations to protect these civilians would still apply.”
The International Red Cross defines “human shielding,” the term used in international humanitarian law to describe the practice, as “the act of placing a civilian in front of a military objective to deter attacks due to their civilian status.”
Despite their accusation against Hamas, the Israeli Defense Forces themselves regularly used Palestinian civilians as human shields under an Israeli military doctrine called the “neighbor procedure” until it was outlawed by the Knesset in 2005. This left Israeli military officials incensed. Former Israel Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz even appeared in court to argue for the ban’s repeal.
Lots of documented evidence that Israeli soldiers, use Palestinian children as human shields http://t.co/XyqwRsg0oc pic.twitter.com/Kker5hRZRy
— Anonymous Palestine (@PalAnonymous) August 17, 2014
B’Tselem, a prominent Israeli human rights organization operating in the occupied territories, reports that since Israel’s 1967 occupation, Israeli security forces have reportedly exploited Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as human shields. The rights group found that:
Since the beginning of the occupation in 1967, Israeli security forces have repeatedly used Palestinians in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip as human shields, ordering them to perform military tasks that risked their lives. As part of this policy, soldiers have ordered Palestinian civilians to remove suspicious objects from roads, to tell people to come out of their homes so the military can arrest them, to stand in front of soldiers while the latter shoot from behind them, and more. The Palestinian civilians were chosen at random for these tasks, and could not refuse the demand placed on them by armed soldiers.”
Israel is often touted as the only democracy in the Middle East; its robust legal system is praised as a panacea to the dictatorial regimes and monarchies of neighboring Arab states. One could infer, therefore, that since it was outlawed by the Israeli Knesset in 2005, the Israeli Defense Forces have halted the barbaric practice, and any soldiers caught resorting to it would be swiftly brought to justice per Israel’s own legislation.
Yet ‘Breaking the Silence,’ a group of former Israeli soldiers and conscientious objectors who speak out about human rights abuses by the Israeli military, say the practice continued unabated well after it was outlawed in 2005. Dozens of highly publicized cases, both inside and outside of Israel, corroborate their claims.
On May 13, 2022, 16-year-old Ahed was left traumatized after being used as a human shield by Israeli soldiers. Defense for Children International reported that:
Israeli soldiers forced Ahed Mohammad Rida Mereb, 16, to stand in front of an Israeli military vehicle on May 13 around 8 a.m. in the Al Hadaf neighborhood of Jenin as Palestinian gunmen shot heavily toward the Israeli forces’ position… Israeli forces ordered Ahed to stand outside the military vehicle for around two hours while they sat inside.”
Just one week later, Israeli forces were photographed forcing a Palestinian man into acting as a human shield during a raid into the occupied West Bank after Palestinian resistance fighters began firing on invading Israeli troops.
Despite its ban under Israeli law, justice has eluded Palestinian victims of the practice. In fact, the last time an Israeli soldier was punished for using a Palestinian as a human shield was in 2010 for an act committed during the 2008 Israeli invasion of Gaza.
B’Tselem summed up the charges against the two offending soldiers as follows:
The two soldiers in question had ordered a nine-year-old boy, at gunpoint, to open a bag they suspected was booby-trapped. Despite the gravity of their conduct – putting a young child at risk – the two were given a three-month conditional sentence and demoted from staff sergeant to private, some two years after the incident took place. None of their commanding officers were tried.”
There is little evidence to suggest that Israel has plans to ditch the practice either. There have been multiple cases documenting Israeli troops using human shields since the events of October 7, 2023.
A video posted to X by renowned Palestinian human rights activist Isso Amro on November 10 shows an Israeli soldier ducking behind a bound and blindfolded Palestinian man during an IDF raid in the Al Fawar Refugee camp in Hebron.
Watch how Israeli soldiers used a Palestinian detainee as a Human Shield in Al Fawar Refugee camp in Hebron . pic.twitter.com/pV9HcPXZi4
— Issa Amro عيسى عمرو (@Issaamro) November 10, 2023
Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and hosts the show ‘Palestine Files’. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’. Follow him on Twitter @falasteen47
The post Hamas Uses Human Shields? The Evidence appeared first on MintPress News.
St Andrews uni wavers on new rector’s free speech on Gaza under pressure from pro-Israel lobby
University bemoans Stella Maris’s email calling genocide genocide
New St Andrews Uni rector Stella Maris
St Andrews University in Scotland has caved at least partially in the face of pressure from the pro-Israel lobby after the university’s rector – a position elected by students – sent out an email recognising Israel’s apartheid and its genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
According to reports in the Establishment media, a letter of protest was signed by ‘hundreds of students’ – but it appears that this was an open letter signed by 1,400 people, many of whom were probably not students since St Andrews only has 10,119 students registered, may not even have been in the UK and potentially might not even exist, as a university is unlikely to verify the names on the bottom of a letter. Pro-Israel pressure groups are known to coordinate pressure globally via social media – and even their own app – to try to suppress free speech that contradicts the Israeli regime’s narrative.
Maris’s email noted – entirely accurately – that Palestinians had been subjected to
apartheid, siege, illegal occupation and collective punishment
During Israel’s mass slaughter of civilians. She also linked to an article that discussed – again, entirely accurately – the fact that many, perhaps most, of those killed during the 7 October kibbutz raid had been killed by Israeli gunships and artillery, a fact inadvertently confirmed even by a senior Netanyahu adviser and former ambassador to the UK. Israel’s apartheid, ‘textbook genocide’ and other war crimes have been attested to by experts, including senior United Nations officials and human rights groups in Israel and internationally.
The university put out a statement saying it was ‘dismayed’ by Ms Maris’s accurate email and very disappointed that she had exercised her freedom of speech – and said it had offered her ‘support’ to retract her email:
As the senior management team which leads the University of St Andrews, we are utterly dismayed that the rector, on this occasion, put her right to freedom of expression ahead of her duty to represent all students, and to be concerned for their welfare.
We know that while some may have welcomed the message, others have been deeply offended and concerned by it.
While every one of us shares a desire for peace and an end to hostilities in Israel and Gaza, we regret that her message, the language that it used, and some of the sources it cited have caused alarm, division, and harm in our community, and more widely.
While she is accountable only to the student body whose interests she was elected to serve, we have, as individuals and as a group of senior leaders, asked her to reflect seriously on the evidence of the upset and fear she has caused, and to take such action as is necessary to restore confidence in her leadership amongst all students, and the wider community.
We have reached out to the rector to offer such support and help as she may require to address these issues.
The statement should, of course, have noted her right to free speech and then stopped there, but many craven universities are well known to have little spine in the face of pro-Israel groups’ manufactured outrage.
Interestingly, the supposedly outraged letter does not appear to have been circulated publicly online and is only quoted selectively by media outlets – which do not name the ‘group’ that sent it. However, the list of likely ‘usual suspects’ is fairly short.
Supporters of Israeli apartheid and war crimes have expressed their horror at Maris’s accuracy “inflammatory and unfounded accusations of ‘genocide,’ ‘apartheid,’ and ‘occupation’ concerning the Jewish State”, claiming it will foster division and “embolden attacks” on Jewish students.
The letter also condemned Maris for not mentioning recent attacks on two students who were leaving a talk by right-wing Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, who has compared marches for Gaza with support for terrorism and has previously said that Israel has ‘no choice’ but to use violence against Gaza. The alleged attackers, who threw eggs, were described by a spokeswoman as around twelve years of age.
Ms Maris told the Telegraph:
While people may disagree with the evidence presented, disagreement should be based on contradictory evidence, not simply because the notion is unpleasant.
Standing with innocents suffering war crimes trumps avoiding offence to supporters of the perpetrators. Every time.
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