IDF drone used to kill 48 Gaza civilians (Guardian video)
The Guardian has published a searing investigative report (watch the video and be prepared to feel outrage) charging the widespread use of unmanned drones to attack Gazan civilians during the recent war. Given that the IDF itself notes the precision optics used in the drones which allow clear identification of, and discrimination among targets, the reporter charges that the IDF knowingly attacked civilians. Doing so constitutes a violation of the laws of war.
Here is the story of one particular attack on a Gazan family sipping tea in their courtyard:
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.
Photo of Nour al-Jarah, killed with five family members while having tea
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?”
Fatheya al-Jarah, sole family survivor of IDF drone attack
There will be Israel pro-war apologists who attempt to explain away stories like this by claiming we’re only hearing the victims’ side of the story. But the Guardian reporter notes a ready and sure defense for Israel: let the IDF publish the videotapes the drone took during the attack to prove whether or not this family is hiding something. Tellingly, the IDF refused to respond to the Guardian’s report.
Apologists may also claim that this incident constitutes a single unfortunate error. The only problem with this excuse is that the Guardian counts 48 Gaza civilians killed in multiple drone attacks.
Hearing the IDF’s tepid defense is infuriating:
“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.”
In the IDF world, when everyone else in the world sees blue, the IDF can not only claim to see green, but it can essentially bluff its way pretending that the rest of the world is wrong in seeing blue and that only it can see the true color is green. In the end, it doesn’t matter that it is blue, since the IDF acts as if it is green and nothing can dissuade it of that fact.
Clearly, the IDF is lying through its teeth. It deliberately murdered civilians not only in this case, but many others documented both here and the world media. It did nothing to minimize harm to civilians. In fact, its rules of engagement gave unprecedented leeway to attack targets whether they be military or civilian. The Dany Zamir-Oranim IDF testimonies make this abundantly clear.
Further, Amira Hass reported recently the retrieval of an Israeli commander’s combat briefing notes from a destroyed Gaza home. Among the telling facts revealed is that troops were directed to fire on unarmed Palestinian civilian resucers. In fact, at least 18 such medics were killed during the war BECAUSE they were deliberately targeted. Such attacks on rescue personnel, documented during the war, caused numerous civilian victims to die of untended wounds. The officer’s notes also seem to indicate that soldiers were directed to shit in the houses, as he writes. Gazans have widely reported that their homes, when they weren’t destroyed outright, were trashed. Soldiers’ feces and urine were left as souvenirs for the survivors to find when they returned. Earlier reports by soldiers indicate that they spat on personal family photographs in the homes which they commandeered, thus leaving a charming momento of their stay.
I find it humorous (in a dark, bleak sort of way) that the IDF attempts to explain this away by claiming that soldiers bivouacing in Gazan homes were told to relieve themselves in places in which they would not be endangered, which meant that sometimes soldier’s did so in unsanitary ways. Yeah, right. Apparently, they’ve never gone on a backcountry camping trip in which you pack out everything you brought in, including your own waste.
The Guardian also reports that Human Rights Watch is now calling for a war crimes investigation of the IDF’s use of white phosphorus in Gaza.
War crimes were committed in Gaza. While I would consider Palestinian shelling of civilians leading to Israeli deaths also to be war crimes which merit investigation and charges, the overwhelming preponderance of criminality lies on the Israeli side. The UN is currently considering opening an investigation into such charges. I believe it is urgently necessary for Israelis and Diaspora Jews to join this call and insist on an independent investigation of Gaza war crimes. Let us give the Israeli government the opportunity to mount a full-fledged investigation (independent of the IDF). If it chooses not to do so, the UN must step in and do the job.
I would be willing to join with other bloggers and peace activists on such a campaign.
12 thoughts on “IDF Drones Murder 48 Gaza Civilians – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم”
Comments are published at the sole discretion of the owner.
that was an awful video… i cant imagine walking down the street and seeing one of those things in the sky knowing that they can shoot me down any time… and get away with it!!!
Israel is never held accountable for the occupation and settlements in the West Bank (in violation of the Geneva Convention and UN Security Council Resolution 242) or the war crimes (such as the use of cluster bombs, white phosphorous etc.) committed during the invasion of Lebanon and Gaza. All of this has done little for Israel but done a lot to recruit men to join a jihad against Israel and their patron–the US. As they say, “Friends don’t let friends drive drunk.” I join with you in calling for an independent investigation of what– by all accounts –appears to be Israeli war crimes in Gaza and will send a donation for this effort.
Oh, there will be an internal inquiry alright. But name me one country that would internally investigate such allegations ‘independently’, you wouldn’t be able to do that because there are none. Countries are highly protective of their military and their police force and it ain’t no different with Israel.
An independent UN inquiry? That would be welcome but is unlikely to be followed by any real legal action: war crimes charges are for the defeated.
But I bet you more evidence of atrocities will continue to come to light and that’ll keep the drip drip drip of negative publicity going: keep here in the headlights is what I say.
Thanks for bringing this very important information. The Guardian article is immaculate – respectful to the victims and their culture, accurate, dispassionate and full with professional detail.
All that remains for the IDF is the usual word-laundry, and then wait around for the politicians to look the other way until the public forgets.
No, actually the IDF is entering the fray. Tonight they released their own “professional, reliable” estimate of Palestinian deaths: 1166 deaths, of them over 700 fighters from age 16 and up (Palestinians have always matured early in the Israeli books. A well-known macabre joke tells how a 19-year-old Israeli “baby” shoots at a 6-year-old Palestinian “youth”). Only 89 under 16 and 49 women in their books.
The pricks. They think it’s some sort of Middle Eastern Souk. You bring your numbers, we will wait around and then lowball them, in the end we’ll meet somewhere midway and toast the deal like buddies.
Not this time, you pieces of jerks. You big blots of shame on Jewish and Israeli history.
On Wednesday the Israeli ministry of defence said that more that 1370 Palestinians died. On Thursday IDF says that 1166 died. Seems that in present days Israel can’t even any more synchronize their own propaganda. Who can take them any more seriously?
The Finnish defence minister visited some days ago Israel and asked (again) Israelis why did they destroy a clinic financed and run by the Finnish Church. The answer was naturally there were near the building Hamas fighters and “we” are still investigating what happened. Well we Finns know that we will hear about those investigations as little we heard from the killing of the Finnish and other UN observers in Lebanon 2006.
Here’s the latest headcount: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1073734.html
600 militants, 309 civilians, 320 undecided yet.
Notably, the “militants” category includes everyone affiliated with Hamas, including police officers and presumably other civilians, from government office staff to charity workers.
Of the 309 innocent civilians killed, 189 were children under the age of 15. Palestinians describe anyone under 18 as a child.
This group also includes 91 women, 21 elderly men who were not involved in the fighting, six UNRWA workers and two medical workers.
Has anyone kept track on from which age civilian Israeli victims are counted as “adults” in Israel’s book?
Do the math: 189 children under 15 + 91 women + 21 elderly men + 6 UNRWA + 2 medical staff = 309 innocent civilians. And draw your own conclusions.
It’s got to be damned hard and lonely these days to be an innocent civilian Palestinian male adult and dead.
“This ratio of uninvolved [civilians] is an achievement for which there are no examples in the history of campaigns, not only in Israel but in the entire world – in this type of environment,” (IDF GOC Southern Command Yoav) Galant was quoted as saying.
Yeah, right. Excuse me while I reach for the barf bag. And don’t forget to feed the sacred cow, deterrence:
The senior officer also said the offensive against Hamas, which he oversaw, had significantly improved Israel’s deterrence, according to Army Radio.
Now there’s got to be a deafening chorus of hollow laughter ringing out all over the Middle East.
The former head of the ILD (the IDF’s international law division), 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.”
“International law progresses through violations.”
Progresses!
This chilling extract illustrates exactly the perils of acquiescing in Israel’s lawless barbarism and moral bankruptcy.
My parents lived through the greatest conflict the world has ever seen. Relatives of the partner of one of my relatives were among the millions slaughtered in the Holocaust. The German mother of a friend of mine remembers schoolgirls selling themselves to American soldiers so their families could eat. I have seen the effect today on a woman in her 70s who will never recover from the repeated rape she suffered when Berlin was occupied.
Out of all this misery and degradation some good did come: A legacy of the millions of lives lost and the millions of lives ruined. We rebuilt and refined a panoply of treaties and conventions to ensure that never again could anything like it be accepted, to assert the inalienable rights of every human being, to clearly delineate to bounds of civilised behaviour. The legacy was a universal code to which we would all hold and which we would all uphold.
The United States has thoroughly trashed the sanctity and legitimacy of those commitments over the last eight years, with the charge lead by those like Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Pearl whose morals were shaped to suit to the needs of Israelis like Colonel Daniel Reisner. I am ashamed of the pusillanimous obsequiousy the UK demonstrated in acquiescing to that. There is no credit in doing what is right when it is easy. It is what we do when it is hard that counts and we failed miserably.
Israelis frequently express surprise that they are singled out for special criticism. The reason is simple. Our governments on our behalf are supporting their transgressions. In other places like Tibet and Sudan we are opposing them. Our moral integrity and authority to uphold this legacy is not challenged by our opposition to evils committed elsewhere, but by our support of evils committed by Israel. My anger and disgust is directed at Israel’s actions because more than any other failure they and our support of them are destroying the legacy of the Holocaust. Nothing could better illustrate this than Colonel Daniel Reisner’s cynical disregard of that legacy. He is correct in implying that laws that are not upheld will fall into disrepute.
I wholeheartedly support Richard’s call for the law to be upheld.
I hope people will forgive me posting this here but I would like to appeal for as many as possible to sign the petition at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/Support-Joel-Kovel calling for the reinstatement of Joel Kovel at Bard College.
For the past 85 years or more the Israelis have adhered to the concept of the “Iron Wall” first formulated by Ze’ev Jabotinsky. This states that such an impregnable force be shown to the Arabs that eventually their will to resist will be broken.
Unsurprisingly, the Palestinians show no signs of capitulation, on the contrary their will to resist grows stronger with every violation of human dignity perpetrated by Israel in the name of self-defence.
This mindset has now become firmly embedded in the Israeli psyche and to some extent in many supporters in the wider world. Only when this attitude of Israel is put to one side can any progress towards peace be made.
I appreciate having Colonel Reisner’s statement. IMO, Israel’s military perspective has come to dominate US foreign policy since 2001, and it is one I consider pernicious. It is striking that death arrives without any of the legal processes we consider necessary for such a sentence. Ah, but it is war, waged ‘properly.’
My concern has been that what one country gets away with doing, others will copy. It seems clear now that there is an intention to change the way the Western world views war, to make it a part of every day life, as appears to be true in Israel. Although it sounds overly dramatic, I consider this to be the end of the freedoms we have been accustomed to consider inalienable.
So much time is spent considering the issues Israel presents as a Jewish state, all of which obscure the reality that Israel is a political state with a particular perspective that has little to do with Judaism and much to do with old concepts of conquest that seemed to be passing away in our ‘enlightened’ age, but were instead hidden behind new plans for extending the economic control of the powerful Western nations.
I think terrorism is an invented construct that serves a purpose: to frighten and divide people so that continual war becomes considered necessary. Israel appears to be making progress in this respect. People who protest it’s actions may be protesting far more than they realize, with much more at stake than is acknowledged by the US.
With certain aspects of war now becoming so impersonal, so immersed in present-day technology that they amount to little more than interactive computer games, I am left wondering exactly how far this trend can be taken.
Perhaps, in all its various form, warfare should, in the end, be reduced to that of the ultimate computer game. In such an eventuality,, we can then switch the whole damn thing off whenever we like: a consummation devoutly to be wished.
And why not? Why should the Devil have all the best tunes?
Surely, between us, we must be able to come up with one of our own.
It all rather depends on what you mean by ‘peace.’
If you want the full works with the milk of human kindness outpouring from both sides and dancing in the streets at the signing of a long-term agreement, then, yes, that does sound like it might be a long time in coming.
But if you only require a cessation of violence, one long enough to reach some better understanding of the situation, then this should be within the bounds of possibility.
Like most things that were once thought to be impossible, the ability to meet this particular requirement can become so blindingly obvious that it takes very little effort to work it out.
So, don’t blame the politicians, the military, this side or the other. Rather, blame our own unwillingness to get the job done and our sluggish use of the brains God gave us for such purposes.
‘The fault lies not in our stars, dear Brutus, but in ourselves.’
STOP GAZA GENOCIDE! Donate/Subscribe to Tikun Olam
Seattle Gaza protest
You aren’t satisfied with the biased reporting of the mainstream media. They can’t possibly convey the truth of this war. But Tikun Olam does, telling stories you won’t find anywhere else.
that was an awful video… i cant imagine walking down the street and seeing one of those things in the sky knowing that they can shoot me down any time… and get away with it!!!
Israel is never held accountable for the occupation and settlements in the West Bank (in violation of the Geneva Convention and UN Security Council Resolution 242) or the war crimes (such as the use of cluster bombs, white phosphorous etc.) committed during the invasion of Lebanon and Gaza. All of this has done little for Israel but done a lot to recruit men to join a jihad against Israel and their patron–the US. As they say, “Friends don’t let friends drive drunk.” I join with you in calling for an independent investigation of what– by all accounts –appears to be Israeli war crimes in Gaza and will send a donation for this effort.
Oh, there will be an internal inquiry alright. But name me one country that would internally investigate such allegations ‘independently’, you wouldn’t be able to do that because there are none. Countries are highly protective of their military and their police force and it ain’t no different with Israel.
An independent UN inquiry? That would be welcome but is unlikely to be followed by any real legal action: war crimes charges are for the defeated.
But I bet you more evidence of atrocities will continue to come to light and that’ll keep the drip drip drip of negative publicity going: keep here in the headlights is what I say.
Richard,
Thanks for bringing this very important information. The Guardian article is immaculate – respectful to the victims and their culture, accurate, dispassionate and full with professional detail.
All that remains for the IDF is the usual word-laundry, and then wait around for the politicians to look the other way until the public forgets.
No, actually the IDF is entering the fray. Tonight they released their own “professional, reliable” estimate of Palestinian deaths: 1166 deaths, of them over 700 fighters from age 16 and up (Palestinians have always matured early in the Israeli books. A well-known macabre joke tells how a 19-year-old Israeli “baby” shoots at a 6-year-old Palestinian “youth”). Only 89 under 16 and 49 women in their books.
The pricks. They think it’s some sort of Middle Eastern Souk. You bring your numbers, we will wait around and then lowball them, in the end we’ll meet somewhere midway and toast the deal like buddies.
Not this time, you pieces of jerks. You big blots of shame on Jewish and Israeli history.
On Wednesday the Israeli ministry of defence said that more that 1370 Palestinians died. On Thursday IDF says that 1166 died. Seems that in present days Israel can’t even any more synchronize their own propaganda. Who can take them any more seriously?
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1074227.html
The Finnish defence minister visited some days ago Israel and asked (again) Israelis why did they destroy a clinic financed and run by the Finnish Church. The answer was naturally there were near the building Hamas fighters and “we” are still investigating what happened. Well we Finns know that we will hear about those investigations as little we heard from the killing of the Finnish and other UN observers in Lebanon 2006.
The most moral army in the world, indeed.
Here’s the latest headcount: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1073734.html
600 militants, 309 civilians, 320 undecided yet.
Notably, the “militants” category includes everyone affiliated with Hamas, including police officers and presumably other civilians, from government office staff to charity workers.
Has anyone kept track on from which age civilian Israeli victims are counted as “adults” in Israel’s book?
Do the math: 189 children under 15 + 91 women + 21 elderly men + 6 UNRWA + 2 medical staff = 309 innocent civilians. And draw your own conclusions.
It’s got to be damned hard and lonely these days to be an innocent civilian Palestinian male adult and dead.
Yeah, right. Excuse me while I reach for the barf bag. And don’t forget to feed the sacred cow, deterrence:
Now there’s got to be a deafening chorus of hollow laughter ringing out all over the Middle East.
Quoting from the Guardian article:
The former head of the ILD (the IDF’s international law division), 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.”
“International law progresses through violations.”
Progresses!
This chilling extract illustrates exactly the perils of acquiescing in Israel’s lawless barbarism and moral bankruptcy.
My parents lived through the greatest conflict the world has ever seen. Relatives of the partner of one of my relatives were among the millions slaughtered in the Holocaust. The German mother of a friend of mine remembers schoolgirls selling themselves to American soldiers so their families could eat. I have seen the effect today on a woman in her 70s who will never recover from the repeated rape she suffered when Berlin was occupied.
Out of all this misery and degradation some good did come: A legacy of the millions of lives lost and the millions of lives ruined. We rebuilt and refined a panoply of treaties and conventions to ensure that never again could anything like it be accepted, to assert the inalienable rights of every human being, to clearly delineate to bounds of civilised behaviour. The legacy was a universal code to which we would all hold and which we would all uphold.
The United States has thoroughly trashed the sanctity and legitimacy of those commitments over the last eight years, with the charge lead by those like Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Pearl whose morals were shaped to suit to the needs of Israelis like Colonel Daniel Reisner. I am ashamed of the pusillanimous obsequiousy the UK demonstrated in acquiescing to that. There is no credit in doing what is right when it is easy. It is what we do when it is hard that counts and we failed miserably.
Israelis frequently express surprise that they are singled out for special criticism. The reason is simple. Our governments on our behalf are supporting their transgressions. In other places like Tibet and Sudan we are opposing them. Our moral integrity and authority to uphold this legacy is not challenged by our opposition to evils committed elsewhere, but by our support of evils committed by Israel. My anger and disgust is directed at Israel’s actions because more than any other failure they and our support of them are destroying the legacy of the Holocaust. Nothing could better illustrate this than Colonel Daniel Reisner’s cynical disregard of that legacy. He is correct in implying that laws that are not upheld will fall into disrepute.
I wholeheartedly support Richard’s call for the law to be upheld.
I hope people will forgive me posting this here but I would like to appeal for as many as possible to sign the petition at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/Support-Joel-Kovel calling for the reinstatement of Joel Kovel at Bard College.
For the past 85 years or more the Israelis have adhered to the concept of the “Iron Wall” first formulated by Ze’ev Jabotinsky. This states that such an impregnable force be shown to the Arabs that eventually their will to resist will be broken.
Unsurprisingly, the Palestinians show no signs of capitulation, on the contrary their will to resist grows stronger with every violation of human dignity perpetrated by Israel in the name of self-defence.
This mindset has now become firmly embedded in the Israeli psyche and to some extent in many supporters in the wider world. Only when this attitude of Israel is put to one side can any progress towards peace be made.
I appreciate having Colonel Reisner’s statement. IMO, Israel’s military perspective has come to dominate US foreign policy since 2001, and it is one I consider pernicious. It is striking that death arrives without any of the legal processes we consider necessary for such a sentence. Ah, but it is war, waged ‘properly.’
My concern has been that what one country gets away with doing, others will copy. It seems clear now that there is an intention to change the way the Western world views war, to make it a part of every day life, as appears to be true in Israel. Although it sounds overly dramatic, I consider this to be the end of the freedoms we have been accustomed to consider inalienable.
So much time is spent considering the issues Israel presents as a Jewish state, all of which obscure the reality that Israel is a political state with a particular perspective that has little to do with Judaism and much to do with old concepts of conquest that seemed to be passing away in our ‘enlightened’ age, but were instead hidden behind new plans for extending the economic control of the powerful Western nations.
I think terrorism is an invented construct that serves a purpose: to frighten and divide people so that continual war becomes considered necessary. Israel appears to be making progress in this respect. People who protest it’s actions may be protesting far more than they realize, with much more at stake than is acknowledged by the US.
With certain aspects of war now becoming so impersonal, so immersed in present-day technology that they amount to little more than interactive computer games, I am left wondering exactly how far this trend can be taken.
Perhaps, in all its various form, warfare should, in the end, be reduced to that of the ultimate computer game. In such an eventuality,, we can then switch the whole damn thing off whenever we like: a consummation devoutly to be wished.
And why not? Why should the Devil have all the best tunes?
Surely, between us, we must be able to come up with one of our own.
Wars are easy to win. It is winning peace that is hard.
It all rather depends on what you mean by ‘peace.’
If you want the full works with the milk of human kindness outpouring from both sides and dancing in the streets at the signing of a long-term agreement, then, yes, that does sound like it might be a long time in coming.
But if you only require a cessation of violence, one long enough to reach some better understanding of the situation, then this should be within the bounds of possibility.
Like most things that were once thought to be impossible, the ability to meet this particular requirement can become so blindingly obvious that it takes very little effort to work it out.
So, don’t blame the politicians, the military, this side or the other. Rather, blame our own unwillingness to get the job done and our sluggish use of the brains God gave us for such purposes.
‘The fault lies not in our stars, dear Brutus, but in ourselves.’
And so it should. And so it does.