Physicians for Human Rights-Israel is a non-party affiliated, non-profit organization, whose goal is the advancement and defense of health-related human rights for all the residents of Israel and the Occupied Territories. This includes residents who lack documents or who are not recognized by the state.
RECOGNIZED Directed by | Ori Kleiner Genre documentary | Length: 61mins | Year of production: 2007 Directors statement: Bedouin usually appear in the Israeli collective consciousness as either "ethnographic" or "demographic" issues. Their representation by means of various objects: coffee, camels, tents, carpets keeps most Israelis from seeing them as people with hopes and dreams, frustrations and fears, as possessing not only a past but a future as well. Recognized focuses on the fragmented experiences of Nuri al Ukbi, Salman Abu Jlidan, Eid Al Athamin, Ibrahim Abu Afash, and Samaher Abu Jlidan whom history has cast in the roles of protagonists antagonized by a state that has established itself upon their ancestral lands. Recognized is not a film about Bedouin, but about people forced into a role of Bedouin as the only identity the State of Israel allows them, and at the same time the very identity it systematically denies them. Substandard citizenship, coupled with daily existential obstacles posed by the State, are what this film is concerned with.
Anthrax vaccine experiments conducted on Israel Defense Force soldiers in the early 1990s were unjustifiable, states a report, compiled by an official medical committee, and authorized for publication on Wednesday.
The experiments, carried out by the IDF's Medical Corps and the Nes Tziona Biological Institute, meant to determine the efficacy of an Anthrax vaccine. The experiments were carried out in light of what was then defined as the "strategic threat of a surprise biological attack facing Israel." However, "the committee was unconvinced," the report said, "that the need for a vaccine was duly considered by decision makers. Also, it is not clear who the decision makers were who determined the vaccine's necessity." The experiment, nicknamed "Omer 2," was held during the first part of the 1990s and included 716 IDF soldiers picked out of a pool of 4,000.
Following a three-month legal battle in Israel's High Court of Justice, the report was finally approved for publication Wednesday.
The report on the experiment was drafted by a special committee of doctors, a legal advisor, and a scientist from the Weizmann Institute of Science
The committee was assembled following a request made by the IDF Medical Crops, and with the court's go-ahead. The High Court also accepted the request of Defense Ministry's security chief and ordered a few central paragraphs of the report be stricken as a result of national security concerns.
The Chairman of the medical committee, Dr. Reuven Porat, told Haarestz that the panel was not presented with any official evidence indicating that either the government, the defense minister of the IDF chief of staff had authorized the development, testing, or production of the vaccine.
However, the committee did hear oral testimony claiming that then Prime Minster Yitzhak Rabin ordered the production of the vaccine and that his successor, Shimon Peres, upheld that decision.
The only official document viewed by the committee that "dealt with the experiment" was written by the deputy Defense Minister.
The report insinuates that drive to hold the experiments was motivated by foreign incentives. However, the report states that the committee "could not make out the true motivations."
The report reveals that even while the experiment was taking place Israel already had a stock of vaccines, a fact which further raised the concern that the experiment wasn't necessary that it was carried out as a result of external pressure.
"An accelerated effort to produce large quantities of the vaccine was underway a year prior to the experiment, and by the time the experiments were launched, Israel had enough vaccines to cover the civilian concerns," the report said.
It was the committee members impression, even though it was not expressed in the final report, that the person who was the driving force behind the experiment was Dr. Avigdor Shafferman, the director of the Nes Tziona Biological Institute and an anthrax specialist.
The committee raised doubts as to Dr. Shafferman's motivations for advancing the experiment. "The committee attempted to determine," the report says, "whether decision makers in the defense and political establishments were pressurized by interested anthrax researchers or research establishments so to bring about the development of the vaccine, regardless of existing strategic threats." The report sees Dr. Shafferman's refusal to appear before it as the reason for its inability to definitively answer those questions.
The Medical Corps and the IDF were cooperative and sent representatives to appear before the committee.
(note from blogger): PHR-Israel played a crucial role in uncovering this experiments on IDF soldiers.
The Guardian has compiled detailed evidence of alleged war crimes committed by Israel during the 23-day offensive in the Gaza Strip earlier this year, involving the use of Palestinian children as human shields and the targeting of medics and hospitals.
A month-long investigation also obtained evidence of civilians being hit by fire from unmanned drone aircraft said to be so accurate that their operators can tell the colour of the clothes worn by a target.
The testimonies form the basis of three Guardian films which add weight to calls this week for a full inquiry into the events surrounding Operation Cast Lead, which was aimed at Hamas but left about 1,400 Palestinians dead, including more than 300 children.
The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) refused to respond directly to the allegations made against its troops, but issued statements denying the charges and insisted international law had been observed.
The latest disclosures follow soldiers' evidence published in the Israeli press about the killing of Palestinian civilians and complaints by soldiers involved in the military operation that the rules of engagement were too lax.
Amnesty International has said Hamas should be investigated for executing at least two dozen Palestinian men in an apparent bout of score-settling with rivals and alleged collaborators while Operation Cast Lead was under way.
Human rights groups say the vast majority of offences were committed by Israel, and that the Gaza offensive was a disproportionate response to Hamas rocket attacks. Since 2002, there have been 21 Israeli deaths by Hamas rockets fired from Gaza, and during Operation Cast Lead there were three Israeli civilian deaths, six Israeli soldiers killed by Palestinian fire and four killed by friendly fire.
"Only an investigation mandated by the UN security council can ensure Israel's co-operation, and it's the only body that can secure some kind of prosecution," said Amnesty's Donatella Rovera, who spent two weeks in Gaza investigating war crime allegations. "Without a proper investigation there is no deterrent. The message remains the same: 'It's OK to do these things, there won't be any real consequences'."
Some of the most dramatic testimony gathered by the Guardian came from three teenage brothers in the al-Attar family. They describe how they were taken from home at gunpoint, made to kneel in front of Israeli tanks to deter Hamas fighters from firing, and sent by Israeli soldiers into Palestinian houses to clear them. "They would make us go first so if any fighters shot at them the bullets would hit us, not them," 14-year-old Al'a al-Attar said.
Medics and ambulance drivers said they were targeted when they tried to tend to the wounded; sixteen were killed. According to the World Health Organisation, more than half of Gaza's 27 hospitals and 44 clinics were damaged by Israeli bombs.
In a report released today, a medical human rights group said there was "certainty" that Israel violated international humanitarian law during the war, with attacks on medics, damage to medical buildings, indiscriminate attacks on civilians and delays in medical treatment for the injured.
"We have noticed a stark decline in IDF morals concerning the Palestinian population of Gaza, which in reality amounts to a contempt for Palestinian lives," said Dani Filc, chairman of Physicians for Human Rights Israel. The Guardian gathered tesimony on missle attacks by Israeli drones against clearly distinguishable civilian targets. In one case a family of six was killed when a missile hit the courtyard of their house. Israel has not admitted using drones but experts say their optical equipment is good enough to identify individual items of clothing worn by targets. The Geneva convention makes it clear medical staff and hospitals are not legitimate targets and forbids involuntary human shields.
The army responded to the claims. "The IDF operated in accordance with 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," it said. The IDF said an investigation was under way into allegations hospitals were targeted. It said Israeli soldiers were under orders to avoid harming medics, but: "However, in light of the difficult reality of warfare in the Gaza Strip carried out in urban and densely populated areas, medics who operate in the area take the risk upon themselves."
Use of human shields was outlawed by Israel's supreme court in 2005 after a string of incidents. The IDF said only Hamas used human shields by launching attacks from civilian areas. An Israeli embassy spokesman said any claims were suspect because of Hamas pressure on witnesses. "Anyone who understands the realities of Gaza will know these people are not free to speak the truth. Those that wish to speak out cannot for fear of beatings, torture or execution at the hands of Hamas," the spokesman said in a written statement.
However, the accounts gathered by the Guardian are supported by the findings of human rights organisations and soldiers' testimony published in the Israeli press.
An IDF squad leader is quoted in the daily newspaper Ha'aretz as saying his soldiers interpreted the rules to mean "we should kill everyone there [in the centre of Gaza]. Everyone there is a terrorist."
• This article was updated on Tuesday March 24 2009 to reflect changes made for the first edition of the Guardian newspaper.
Less than a month after the end of Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip, dozens of graduates of the Yitzhak Rabin pre-military preparatory program convened at Oranim Academic College in Kiryat Tivon. Since 1998 the program has prepared participants for what is considered meaningful military service. Many assume command positions in combat and other elite units of the Israel Defense Forces. The program's founder, Danny Zamir, still heads it today and also serves as deputy battalion commander in a reserve unit.
The previous Friday, February 13, Zamir had invited combat soldiers and officers who graduated the program for a lengthy discussion of their experiences in Gaza. They spoke openly, but also with considerable frustration.
Following are extensive excerpts from the transcript of the meeting, as it appears in the program's bulletin, Briza, which was published on Wednesday. The names of the soldiers have been changed to preserve their anonymity. The editors have also left out some of the details concerning the identity of the units that operated in a problematic way in Gaza.
Danny Zamir: "I don't intend for us to evaluate the achievements and the diplomatic-political significance of Operation Cast Lead this evening, nor need we deal with the systemic military aspect [of it]. However, discussion is necessary because this was, all told, an exceptional war action in terms of the history of the IDF, which has set new limits for the army's ethical code and that of the State of Israel as a whole.
"This is an action that sowed massive destruction among civilians. It is not certain that it was possible do have done it differently, but ultimately we have emerged from this operation and are not facing real paralysis from the Qassams. It is very possible that we will repeat such an operation on a larger scale in the years to come, because the problem in the Gaza Strip is not simple and it is not at all certain that it has been solved. What we want this evening is to hear from the fighters."
Aviv: "I am squad commander of a company that is still in training, from the Givati Brigade. We went into the area of the Zeitun neighborhood in the southern part of Gaza City. Altogether, this is a special experience. In the course of the training, you wait for the day you will go into Gaza, and in the end it isn't really like they say it is. It's more like, you come, you take over a house, you kick the tenants out and you move in. We stayed in a house for something like a week.
"Toward the end of the operation there was a plan to go into a very densely populated area inside Gaza City itself. In the briefings they started to talk to us about orders for opening fire inside the city, because as you know they used a huge amount of firepower and killed a huge number of people along the way, so that we wouldn't get hurt and they wouldn't fire on us.
"At first the specified action was to go into a house. We were supposed to go in with an armored personnel carrier called an Achzarit [literally, Cruel] to burst through the lower door, to start shooting inside and then ... I call this murder ... in effect, we were supposed to go up floor by floor, and any person we identified - we were supposed to shoot. I initially asked myself: Where is the logic in this?
"From above they said it was permissible, because anyone who remained in the sector and inside Gaza City was in effect condemned, a terrorist, because they hadn't fled. I didn't really understand: On the one hand they don't really have anywhere to flee to, but on the other hand they're telling us they hadn't fled so it's their fault ... This also scared me a bit. I tried to exert some influence, insofar as is possible from within my subordinate position, to change this. In the end the specification involved going into a house, operating megaphones and telling [the tenants]: 'Come on, everyone get out, you have five minutes, leave the house, anyone who doesn't get out gets killed.'
"I went to our soldiers and said, 'The order has changed. We go into the house, they have five minutes to escape, we check each person who goes out individually to see that he has no weapons, and then we start going into the house floor by floor to clean it out ... This means going into the house, opening fire at everything that moves , throwing a grenade, all those things. And then there was a very annoying moment. One of my soldiers came to me and asked, 'Why?' I said, 'What isn't clear? We don't want to kill innocent civilians.' He goes, 'Yeah? Anyone who's in there is a terrorist, that's a known fact.' I said, 'Do you think the people there will really run away? No one will run away.' He says, 'That's clear,' and then his buddies join in: 'We need to murder any person who's in there. Yeah, any person who's in Gaza is a terrorist,' and all the other things that they stuff our heads with, in the media.
"And then I try to explain to the guy that not everyone who is in there is a terrorist, and that after he kills, say, three children and four mothers, we'll go upstairs and kill another 20 or so people. And in the end it turns out that [there are] eight floors times five apartments on a floor - something like a minimum of 40 or 50 families that you murder. I tried to explain why we had to let them leave, and only then go into the houses. It didn't really help. This is really frustrating, to see that they understand that inside Gaza you are allowed to do anything you want, to break down doors of houses for no reason other than it's cool.
"You do not get the impression from the officers that there is any logic to it, but they won't say anything. To write 'death to the Arabs' on the walls, to take family pictures and spit on them, just because you can. I think this is the main thing in understanding how much the IDF has fallen in the realm of ethics, really. It's what I'll remember the most."
"One of our officers, a company commander, saw someone coming on some road, a woman, an old woman. She was walking along pretty far away, but close enough so you could take out someone you saw there. If she were suspicious, not suspicious - I don't know. In the end, he sent people up to the roof, to take her out with their weapons. From the description of this story, I simply felt it was murder in cold blood."
Zamir: "I don't understand. Why did he shoot her?"
Aviv: "That's what is so nice, supposedly, about Gaza: You see a person on a road, walking along a path. He doesn't have to be with a weapon, you don't have to identify him with anything and you can just shoot him. With us it was an old woman, on whom I didn't see any weapon. The order was to take the person out, that woman, the moment you see her."
Zvi: "Aviv's descriptions are accurate, but it's possible to understand where this is coming from. And that woman, you don't know whether she's ... She wasn't supposed to be there, because there were announcements and there were bombings. Logic says she shouldn't be there. The way you describe it, as murder in cold blood, that isn't right. It's known that they have lookouts and that sort of thing."
Gilad: "Even before we went in, the battalion commander made it clear to everyone that a very important lesson from the Second Lebanon War was the way the IDF goes in - with a lot of fire. The intention was to protect soldiers' lives by means of firepower. In the operation the IDF's losses really were light and the price was that a lot of Palestinians got killed."
Ram: "I serve in an operations company in the Givati Brigade. After we'd gone into the first houses, there was a house with a family inside. Entry was relatively calm. We didn't open fire, we just yelled at everyone to come down. We put them in a room and then left the house and entered it from a different lot. A few days after we went in, there was an order to release the family. They had set up positions upstairs. There was a sharpshooters' position on the roof. The platoon commander let the family go and told them to go to the right. One mother and her two children didn't understand and went to the left, but they forgot to tell the sharpshooter on the roof they had let them go, and it was was okay and he should hold his fire and he ... he did what he was supposed to, like he was following his orders."
Question from the audience: "At what range was this?"
Ram: "Between 100 and 200 meters, something like that. They had also came out of the house that he was on the roof of, they had advanced a bit and suddenly he saw then, people moving around in an area where they were forbidden to move around. I don't think he felt too bad about it, because after all, as far as he was concerned, he did his job according to the orders he was given. And the atmosphere in general, from what I understood from most of my men who I talked to ... I don't know how to describe it .... The lives of Palestinians, let's say, is something very, very less important than the lives of our soldiers. So as far as they are concerned they can justify it that way."
Yuval Friedman (chief instructor at the Rabin program): "Wasn't there a standing order to request permission to open fire?"
Ram: "No. It exists, beyond a certain line. The idea is that you are afraid that they are going to escape from you. If a terrorist is approaching and he is too close, he could blow up the house or something like that."
Zamir: "After a killing like that, by mistake, do they do some sort of investigation in the IDF? Do they look into how they could have corrected it?"
Ram: "They haven't come from the Military Police's investigative unit yet. There hasn't been any ... For all incidents, there are individual investigations and general examinations, of all of the conduct of the war. But they haven't focused on this specifically."
Moshe: "The attitude is very simple: It isn't pleasant to say so, but no one cares at all. We aren't investigating this. This is what happens during fighting and this is what happens during routine security."
Ram: "What I do remember in particular at the beginning is the feeling of almost a religious mission. My sergeant is a student at a hesder yeshiva [a program that combines religious study and military service]. Before we went in, he assembled the whole platoon and led the prayer for those going into battle. A brigade rabbi was there, who afterward came into Gaza and went around patting us on the shoulder and encouraging us, and praying with people. And also when we were inside they sent in those booklets, full of Psalms, a ton of Psalms. I think that at least in the house I was in for a week, we could have filled a room with the Psalms they sent us, and other booklets like that.
"There was a huge gap between what the Education Corps sent out and what the IDF rabbinate sent out. The Education Corps published a pamphlet for commanders - something about the history of Israel's fighting in Gaza from 1948 to the present. The rabbinate brought in a lot of booklets and articles, and ... their message was very clear: We are the Jewish people, we came to this land by a miracle, God brought us back to this land and now we need to fight to expel the gentiles who are interfering with our conquest of this holy land. This was the main message, and the whole sense many soldiers had in this operation was of a religious war. From my position as a commander and 'explainer,' I attempted to talk about the politics - the streams in Palestinian society, about how not everyone who is in Gaza is Hamas, and not every inhabitant wants to vanquish us. I wanted to explain to the soldiers that this war is not a war for the sanctification of the holy name, but rather one to stop the Qassams."
Zamir: "I would like to ask the pilots who are here, Gideon and Yonatan, to tell us a little about their perspective. As an infantryman, this has always interested me. How does it feel when you bomb a city like that?"
Gideon: "First of all, about what you have said concerning the crazy amounts of firepower: Right in the first foray in the fighting, the quantities were very impressive, very large, and this is mainly what sent all the Hamasniks into hiding in the deepest shelters and kept them from showing their faces until some two weeks after the fighting.
"In general the way that it works for us, just so you will understand the differences a bit, is that at night I would come to the squadron, do one foray in Gaza and go home to sleep. I go home to sleep in Tel Aviv, in my warm bed. I'm not stuck in a bed in the home of a Palestinian family, so life is a little better.
"When I'm with the squadron, I don't see a terrorist who is launching a Qassam and then decide to fly out to get him. There is a whole system that supports us, that serves as eyes, ears and intelligence for every plane that takes off, and creates more and more targets in real-time, of one level of legitimacy or another. In any case, I try to believe that these are targets [determined according to] the highest possible level of legitimacy.
"They dropped leaflets over Gaza and would sometimes fire a missile from a helicopter into the corner of some house, just to shake up the house a bit so everyone inside would flee. These things worked. The families came out, and really people [i.e., soldiers] did enter houses that were pretty empty, at least of innocent civilians. From this perspective it works.
"In any case, I arrive at the squadron, I get a target with a description and coordinates, and basically just make sure it isn't within the line of our forces. I look at the picture of the house I am suppose to attack, I see that it matches reality, I take off, I push the button and the bomb takes itself exactly to within one meter of the target itself."
Zamir: "Among the pilots, is there also talk or thoughts of remorse? For example, I was terribly surprised by the enthusiasm surrounding the killing of the Gaza traffic police on the first day of the operation: They took out 180 traffic cops. As a pilot, I would have questioned that."
Gideon: "There are two parts to this. Tactically speaking, you call them 'police.' In any case, they are armed and belong to Hamas ... During better times, they take Fatah people and throw them off the roofs and see what happens.
"With regard to the thoughts, you sit with the squadron and there are lots of discussions about the value-related significance of the fighting, about what we are doing; there is a lot to talk about. From the moment you start the plane's engine until the moment you turn it off, all of your thoughts, all of your concentration and all of your attention are on the mission you have to carry out. If you have an unjustified doubt, you're liable to cause a far greater screw-up and knock down a school with 40 children. If the building I hit isn't the one I am supposed to hit, but rather a house with our guys inside - the price of the mistake is very, very high."
Question from the audience: "Was there anyone in the squadron who didn't push the button, who thought twice?"
Gideon: "That question should be addressed to those involved in the helicopter operation, or to the guys who see what they do. With the weapons I used, my ability to make a decision that contradicts what they told me up to that point is zero. I dispatch the bomb from a range within which I can see the entire Gaza Strip. I also see Haifa, I also see Sinai, but it's more or less the same. It's from really far away."
Yossi: "I am a platoon sergeant in an operations company of the Paratroops Brigade. We were in Jabalya. We were in a house and discovered a family inside that wasn't supposed to be there. We assembled them all in the basement, posted two guards at all times and made sure they didn't make any trouble. Gradually, the emotional distance between us broke down - we had cigarettes with them, we drank coffee with them, we talked about the meaning of life and the fighting in Gaza. After very many conversations the owner of the house, a man of 70-plus, was saying it's good we are in Gaza and it's good that the IDF is doing what it is doing.
"The next day we sent the owner of the house and his son, a man of 40 or 50, for questioning. The day after that, we received an answer: We found out that both are political activists in Hamas. That was a little annoying - that they tell you how fine it is that you're here and good for you and blah-blah-blah, and then you find out that they were lying to your face the whole time.
"What annoyed me was that in the end, after we understood that the members of this family weren't exactly our good friends and they pretty much deserved to be forcibly ejected from there, my platoon commander suggested that when we left the house, we should clean up all the stuff, pick up and collect all the garbage in bags, sweep and wash the floor, fold up the blankets we used, make a pile of the mattresses and put them back on the beds."
Zamir: "What do you mean? Didn't every IDF unit that left a house do that?"
Yossi: "No. Not at all. On the contrary: In most of the houses graffiti was left behind and things like that."
Zamir: "That's simply behaving like animals."
Yossi: "You aren't supposed to be concentrating on folding blankets when you're being shot at."
Zamir: "I haven't heard all that much about you being shot at. It's not that I'm complaining, but if you've spent a week in a home, clean up your filth."
Aviv: "We got an order one day: All of the equipment, all of the furniture - just clean out the whole house. We threw everything, everything, out of the windows to make room. The entire contents of the house went flying out the windows."
Yossi: "There was one day when a Katyusha, a Grad, landed in Be'er Sheva and a mother and her baby were moderately to seriously injured. They were neighbors of one of my soldiers. We heard the whole story on the radio, and he didn't take it lightly - that his neighbors were seriously hurt. So the guy was a bit antsy, and you can understand him. To tell a person like that, 'Come on, let's wash the floor of the house of a political activist in Hamas, who has just fired a Katyusha at your neighbors that has amputated one of their legs' - this isn't easy to do, especially if you don't agree with it at all. When my platoon commander said, 'Okay, tell everyone to fold up blankets and pile up mattresses,' it wasn't easy for me to take. There was lot of shouting. In the end I was convinced and realized it really was the right thing to do. Today I appreciate and even admire him, the platoon commander, for what happened there. In the end I don't think that any army, the Syrian army, the Afghani army, would wash the floor of its enemy's houses, and it certainly wouldn't fold blankets and put them back in the closets."
Zamir: "I think it would be important for parents to sit here and hear this discussion. I think it would be an instructive discussion, and also very dismaying and depressing. You are describing an army with very low value norms, that's the truth ... I am not judging you and I am not complaining about you. I'm just reflecting what I'm feeling after hearing your stories. I wasn't in Gaza, and I assume that among reserve soldiers the level of restraint and control is higher, but I think that all in all, you are reflecting and describing the kind of situation we were in.
"After the Six-Day War, when people came back from the fighting, they sat in circles and described what they had been through. For many years the people who did this were said to be 'shooting and crying.' In 1983, when we came back from the Lebanon War, the same things were said about us. We need to think about the events we have been through. We need to grapple with them also, in terms of establishing a standard or different norms.
"It is quite possible that Hamas and the Syrian army would behave differently from me. The point is that we aren't Hamas and we aren't the Syrian army or the Egyptian army, and if clerics are anointing us with oil and sticking holy books in our hands, and if the soldiers in these units aren't representative of the whole spectrum in the Jewish people, but rather of certain segments of the population - what are we expecting? To whom are we complaining?
"As reservists we don't take relate seriously to the orders of the regional brigades. We let the old people go through and we let families go through. Why kill people when it's clear to you that they are civilians? Which aspect of Israel's security will be harmed, who will be harmed? Exercise judgment, be human."
Initial testimonies given by Israel Defense Forces soldiers and officers who fought in Israel's offensive on the Gaza Strip earlier this year paints a grim picture of civilian deaths, deliberate destruction of Palestinian property and lenient orders to open fire.
Dozens of combat soldiers, graduates of the Oranim pre-military institute, gathered at their alma mater last month to relate their experiences during Operation Cast Lead.
Their on-the-ground testimonies are different from the army's official statements, in which the IDF insisted its forces paid heed to high moral standards in every sector. In one testimony, a soldier describes an incident in which an IDF sniper killed a Palestinian woman and her two children.
"There was one house with a family in it... we put them into some room. Afterward, we left the house and another company went in, and a few days after we went in there was an order to release the family. We took our positions upstairs."
"There was a sniper position on the roof and the company commander released the family and told them to take a right," said the soldier. "One mother and her two children didn't understand, and they took a left. Someone forgot to notify the sniper on the roof that the family had been released, and that it was okay, it was fine, to hold fire, and he... you can say he acted as necessary, as he was ordered to."
More soldier testimonies will be published in Haaretz over the coming days.
Nandita Das’s layered and diverse look at the impact of communal violence on the lives of those who must continue in the aftermath of the 2002 riots in Gujarat.
And more interesting films, see: http://www.hrw.org/iff/london
Tristan Anderson, 38, an American citizen, was critically injured on Friday by Israeli troops during protests against Israel's Wall in the West Bank village of Ni’lin. He was hit in his forehead by a new type of high velocity, extended range teargas projectile, and has been transferred to Tel Hashomer hospital, near Tel Aviv. Tristan is unconscious, anesthetized and artificially respirated, after sustaining life-threatening injuries to his brain (as well as to his right eye), and is expected to undergo several operations in the coming days, in addition to the one he underwent today.
The impact of the projectile caused numerous condensed fractures to Anderson's forehead and right eye socket. During the operation, part of his right frontal lobe had to be removed, as it was penetrated by bone fragments. A brain fluid leakage was sealed using a tendon from his thigh, and both his right eye and skin suffered extensive damage. The long term scope of all of Tristan's injuries is yet unknown. It should also be noted that soldiers at the Ni'ilin checkpoint prevented the Red Crescent ambulance from taking Tristan directly to the hospital, forcing it to wait for approximately 15 minutes until an Israeli ICU ambulance (called by Israeli activists) arrived at scene, after which he was carried from one side of the checkpoint to the other. This, of course, is standard procedure - in the extremely rare cases where the army allows patients from the occupied territories to be tranferred into Israel.
Tristan was hit while standing inside the village, several hours after the army initially attacked a protest march of Ni'ilin's residents, joined by Israel and international activists, who attempted to march onto their own lands in the direction of the wall. As opposed to previous demonstrations, this week protesters managed to actually reach the road on which the wall is currently being constructed, and even caused damage to parts of the razor-wire protecting the site, as well as the newly erected fence segments of the barrier. Israeli troops dispersed demonstrators by using large amounts of teargas and rubber coated steel bullets, driving everyone back into the village. Soldiers then followed the crowd and proceeded to shoot concussion grenades, teargas canisters, rubber coated steel bullets and even live ammunition into the village, to which many of Ni'ilin's youth responded by using slingshots to try and drive the army further away from the outskirts of the village.
Anderson's injury is part of a recent escalation in the army's violent attempts to suppress Palestinian unarmed popular resistance to the occupation. Israeli troops have been using the aforementioned new teargas canister since December 2008, when Israel launched its ruthless assault on Gaza. The black canister, labeled in Hebrew as “40mm bullet, special/long range,” has a range of over 400 meters, emits a very faint sound when fired and leaves hardly any smoke tail at all – making it extremely difficult to avoid. Furthermore, and against the army's own regulations, soldiers routinely shoot it directly towards demonstrators, as opposed to an arched trajectory. The combination of all these factors has led to numerous injuries from these projectiles, including a fractured skull and a broken leg suffered by Palestinians earlier this year.
In addition, Israel resumed using sniper-fire, shot from a suppressed Ruger 10/22 rifle, as a means of crowed dispersal. This conduct was forbidden by the army itself already late in 2001, after the JAG at the time reclassified the Ruger as "live ammunition" for all intents and purposes, following numerous deaths of demonstrators as well as tests carried out in military shooting ranges.
During the Friday clashes in Ni'ilin, two other Palestinians and one international were lightly injured after being hit by teargas canisters, while a third Palstinian was shot in his leg with live ammunition by a sniper, and was evacuated to a hospital in Ramallah.
The Russell Tribunal on Palestine is launched today at a press conference chaired by Stéphane Hessel, Ambassador of France. The initiators, Ken Coates, Chairman of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, Leila Shahid, General Delegate of Palestine to the European Union, Belgium and Luxembourg and Nurit Peled, Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, discussed the history and reasons why they called for the creation of this Tribunal. Speaking for the Organising Committee, the former Belgian Senator Pierre Galand explained how it will work. Amongst more than a hundred international personalities who have given their support to this Tribunal, Ken Loach, Paul Laverty, Raji Surani, Jean Ziegler, François Rigaux, Jean Salmon and François Maspero were present to give encouragement.
In the tradition of the Russell Tribunal on War Crimes in Vietnam, the Russell Tribunal on Palestine is a citizens’ initiative that aims to reaffirm the primacy of international law as the basis for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and at raising awareness of the responsibility of the international community in the continuing denial of the rights of the Palestinian people.
The Russell Tribunal on Palestine will base its work on Experts’ and Witnesses’ Committees that will establish the facts and build up the legal arguments that will be presented to the Tribunal. National Support Committees will contribute to the preparation of experts’ reports, promote popular mobilisation and media coverage and participate in fundraising. We can already count on strong support from the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands, Portugal, Ireland, Lebanon, Algeria, Australia, Italy, South Africa, Egypt and, of course, from Israel and Palestine. Further contacts are under way for the reation of such Committees in other countries and continents.
Once the accusation has been fully prepared and the witnesses summoned, the sessions of the Tribunal will be organised at the beginning of 2010 in several major capitals. A jury made up of well-known personalities who are respected for their high moral standing will consider the reports and hear the witnesses for and against.
The jury will announce its conclusions which, we are persuaded, will attract widespread international public and political support, thereby contributing to a just and durable peace in the Middle East.
Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR - IL), The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), Gisha – Legal Center For Freedom of Movement and B'Tselem Protest Violations of the Rights of Palestinian Patients
Following the decision of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah to stop all financial coverage for the medical treatments of Palestinian patients in Israeli hospitals, and given the policy of the Government of Israel (GOI) to insist on conditioning access to healthcare for Palestinians in Israel in financial coverage from the Palestinian Authority (PA), PHR-IL, PCHR, Gisha and B'Tselem protest the use of Palestinian patients as political tools by both the PA and the GOI.
In January 2009, after the end of the Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip, the PA cancelled financial coverage for all medical care for Palestinians in Israeli hospitals, including coverage for chronically ill Palestinian patients, and those in need of complex care that is not available in other tertiary medical centers in the region.
The result has been that an estimation of hundreds of Palestinian patients who were in the middle of long-term treatment regimes in Israel, including cancer patients in need of chemotherapy, radiotherapy and bone marrow transplantation, found their treatments interrupted with no alternatives.
We, human rights organizations in Israel and Palestine, regard Israel as an Occupying Power who bears overall responsibility for the protection of the right to health of the Palestinian, including free access to health services in the territories it occupies.
In agreeing to act as provider of healthcare services to the Palestinian population, the PA (Ramallah) took upon itself responsibility for that population. However, the ability of the PA in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) to supply appropriate health care services is fundamentally restricted by Israel as an Occupying Power.
The exploitation of the healthcare system in general and of seriously ill patients in particular, for political and financial aims, is a grave violation of the principles of medical ethics and of human rights.
PHR-IL, PCHR, Gisha and B'Tselem call:
The Government of Israel: To recognize its ultimate responsibility as an Occupying Power for the healthcare of the population under its control, and to ensure that all residents of the OPT have access to appropriate healthcare regardless of financial coverage.
The Palestinian Authority: To renew its financial coverage for all Palestinian patients who need to complete their medical treatment in Israel, at least until an appropriate and accessible new health care provider can be found. The PA has the right to decide where it will refer its patients; however, the rights of all these patients to continuity of heath care must not be violated.
For further information, please contact Ran Yaron, Director of the OccupiedPalestinianTerritories, PHR-IL, Tel +972-54-7577696, e-mail address ranyaron@phr.org.il.
Mittwoch, 18. März 2009 19.30 Uhr (Bitte geänderte Anfangszeit beachten!) Haus der Demokratie und Menschenrechte, Saal Robert Havemann Greifswalder Straße 4, 10405 Berlin (Tram M4, Bus 200, 240, Haltestelle Am Friedrichshain)
Einladung zur Diskussionsveranstaltung des AK Nahost Berlin
Referent:Dr. Brian Klug, Oxford Brian Klug ist Senior Research Fellow in Philosphy at St. Bent´s Hall, Oxford und Mitglied der philosophischen Fakultät der Universität Oxford (UK). Von seinen zahlreichen Publikationen zu den Themen Rassismus, Antisemitismus, Zionismus und Jüdische Identität sind einige auf deutsch erschienen, u. a. im Sammelband "Antisemitismus, Antizionismus, Israelkritik", Göttingen 2005. Brian Klug ist Mitbegründer des Jewish Forum for Justice und Human Rights (JFJHR)* *und der Independent Jewish Voice (IJV).
Thema:
Nach der Gaza-Offensive: Bekommt der Antisemitismus neuen Auftrieb?
Nach der israelischen Militäroffensive im Gazastreifen wurde den Kritikern am israelischen Vorgehen häufig und von verschiedenen Seiten vorgeworfen, sie würden antisemitische Einstellungen vertreten oder antijüdische Vorurteile verstärken. Die so Kritisierten nehmen ihrerseits für sich in Anspruch, daß Kritik an Israel möglich sei, ohne daß dies oder die Kritiker antisemitisch seien.
Damit sind eine Reihe von Fragen unmittelbar verbunden: Wann ist Kritik an Israel (oder Opposition gegen zionistische Einstellungen) antisemitisch? Ist Antizionismus nur eine Maske für Antisemitismus? Oder sind die Antisemitismusvorwürfe nur eine Spielart der pro-zionistischen Propaganda?
Auf diese Fragen wird der Referent eingehen. Schon 2003 hatte er geschrieben: "Je länger Israel auf seiner Politik gegenüber den Palästinensern besteht, desto heftiger wird es angegriffen werden, und das nicht nur von Antisemiten, sondern auch von Leuten, die guten Willens sind. Fast niemand mehr wird für Israel Partei ergreifen mit Ausnahme des jüdischen Mainstream, für den es dann wieder das altbekannte "hier 'die Welt' und dort 'die Juden'" sein wird. (...) Schließlich werden die Leute nicht mehr wissen, wie sie vermeiden können, antisemitisch zu erscheinen, und die Juden werden nicht wissen, wie sie aufhören können, Opfer zu sein."
Und heute – hat die Gaza-Offensive dazu geführt, daß es unmöglich ist, die Antisemitismus-Frage von der Palästina-Frage zu trennen? Wie, wenn überhaupt, können diese beiden Probleme getrennt werden?
Wir freuen uns auf einen interessanten Vortrag und eine angeregte Diskussion.
Anyone intersted in the Lancet series about the health conditions in the occupied Palestinian territories. You have to register to get the full text. The single studies are excellent and very well researched dispite all the difficulties. As Rita Giacaman pointed out: "It´s not the end of a process, but the start."
One of the very, very rare reports from the ICRC. The policy of this organization is basically to keep the facts about a conflict to themselves. There is a full scale fact finding mission on the way in Gaza, but the results will be presented only towards the perpetrator, Israeli government, not to the public and not towards the UN. End of March there will be the launch of PHR's fact finding mission results in Brussels, watch out for further announcements.
Gaza: ICRC demands urgent access to wounded as Israeli army fails to assist wounded Palestinians Communique, ICRC, January 8
Geneva/Jerusalem/Tel Aviv -- On the afternoon of 7 January, four Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) ambulances and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) managed to obtain access for the first time to several houses in the Zaytun neighbourhood of Gaza City that had been affected by Israeli shelling.
The ICRC had requested safe passage for ambulances to access this neighbourhood since 3 January but it only received permission to do so from the Israel Defense Forces during the afternoon of 7 January.
The ICRC/PRCS team found four small children next to their dead mothers in one of the houses. They were too weak to stand up on their own. One man was also found alive, too weak to stand up. In all there were at least 12 corpses lying on mattresses.
In another house, the ICRC/PRCS rescue team found 15 other survivors of this attack including several wounded. In yet another house, they found an additional three corpses. Israeli soldiers posted at a military position some 80 meters away from this house ordered the rescue team to leave the area which they refused to do. There were several other positions of the Israel Defense Forces nearby as well as two tanks.
"This is a shocking incident," said Pierre Wettach, the ICRC's head of delegation for Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. "The Israeli military must have been aware of the situation but did not assist the wounded. Neither did they make it possible for us or the Palestine Red Crescent to assist the wounded."
Large earth walls erected by the Israeli army had made it impossible to bring ambulances into the neighbourhood. Therefore, the children and the wounded had to be taken to the ambulances on a donkey cart. In total, the ICRC/PRCS rescue team evacuated 18 wounded and 12 others who were extremely exhausted. Two corpses were also evacuated. The ICRC/PRCS will recover the remaining corpses on Thursday.
The ICRC was informed that there are more wounded sheltering in other destroyed houses in this neighbourhood. It demands that the Israeli military grant it and PRCS ambulances safe passage and access immediately to search for any other wounded. Until now, the ICRC has still not received confirmation from the Israeli authorities that this will be allowed.
The ICRC believes that in this instance the Israeli military failed to meet its obligation under international humanitarian law to care for and evacuate the wounded. It considers the delay in allowing rescue services access unacceptable.
2.10 -3.30 A Time To Speak Out: Independent Jewish Voices on Israel, Zionism and Jewish Identity: Howard Cooper, Gabriel Josipovici, Antony Lerman, Eyal Weizman, Jacqueline Rose, Chair: Lynne Segal
3.30 -4.30 Miri Weingarten, key activist, Physicians for Human Rights, Director of Occupied Palestinian Territory Department, Chair: Tony Klug
4.30 - 5.00 break 5.00-6.30 Uri Avnery, Israel's leading dissident and veteran peace campaigner: The Anger, the Longing, the Hope: Searching for Peace in Israel/Palestine. Chair and discussant: Ian Black
Venue: Jeffrey Hall, Institute of Education, Bedford Way, London WC1
Cost: £15 (£10 for students and unemployed)
Booking essential
Please see IJV website for details: http://jewishvoices.squarespace.com/
Physicians for Human Rights-Israel was founded in 1988 with the goal of struggling for human rights, in particular the right to health, in Israel and the Occupied Territories. Human dignity, wellness of mind and body and the right to health are at the core of the world view of the organization and direct and instruct its activities and efforts on both the individual and general level. PHR-Israel's activities integrate advocacy and action toward changing harmful policies and direct action providing healthcare. Today Physicians for Human Rights-Israel has more than 1150 members, over half of whom are healthcare providers.
"The Association of Israeli and Palestinian Physicians for Human Rights", as the association was then called, was established during the first months of the Palestinian uprising in the Occupied Territories. Daily, people were wounded and killed. One of the association’s first activities was a visit to the hospitals in the Gaza Strip, and protest against the use of medical care as a means of controlling the local population. In addition, the organization protested against doctor participation in the torture of Palestinian detainees. The foundation's actions were based on the principles of medical ethics and on international conventions relevant to medical staff.
Since the founding of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel the association has expanded its activities and today focuses on a wider range of topics centering on health in the broadest sense, while calling for social solidarity both within and outside the borders of Israel. Today PHR-Israel runs five projects: the Occupied Territories Project, the Prisoners and Detainees Project, the Migrant Workers and Refugees Project, the Project for the Unrecognized Villages of the Negev, and the Residents of Israel Project. In addition, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel runs a mobile clinic in the Occupied Territories, and an open clinic in Tel Aviv that provides services for all within Israel who have no legal status and therefore no health insurance. The association believes that the combination of medical ethics and human rights serves as a moral touchstone for doctors who find themselves caught in conflicts between the system in which they work and the demands of their conscience. The foundation also acts in situations where medical ethics and human rights are challenged, as in the case of doctor participation in torture.
Physicians for Human Rights-Israel works in co-operation and in solidarity with other organizations, Israeli, Palestinian and foreign.
At the legislative level, Israel employs the rhetoric of "justice, equality and mutual assistance." Physicians for Human Rights-Israel works to implement these values on a practical level struggling not only to aid the individual, but also to change the policies that are at the base of human rights abuses.
Physicians for Human Rights-Israel is a member of the IFHHRO (the International Federation of Health and Human Rights Organizations). The foundation has won numerous prizes throughout the years, including the Prime Minister's "Defense of the Child" award and the Emil Greenzweig prize of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. The President of the association and the Field Work Director have won the Jonathan Mann award.
It is our pleasure to invite you to attend our conference 'Health Under Occupation, Health Under Fire', a meeting to be held between 9am - 1pm, on Thursday 05 March 2009, at the Westminster Central Hall in London.
9am
Registration and Coffee
9:30am
Official Welcome
Baroness Helena Kennedy QC
Dr.Graham Watt
9:40 Panel One: Health in the occupied Palestinian territory
Sir Iain Chalmers, chair
Rita Giacaman
Health Status and Services in the occupied Palestinian territory
Hanan Abdul Rahim
Maternal and Child Health
Abdullatif Husseini
Chronic Disease in the occupied Palestinian territory
Rajaie Batniji
Health as Human Security
Awad Mataria
Health Care System: Assessment and Reform Agenda
- Coffee and Tea - 11:40 -Panel Two: Gaza Crisis and the Politics of Health
Dr. Graham Watt, chair
Tony Laurance - World Health Organisation, West Bank and Gaza Strip
Initial Health Needs Assessment
Swee Chai Ang
Gaza's Hospitals: Wounds of War
Miri Weingarten - Physicians for Human Rights Israel
Medical and Humanitarian Violations, and Accountability in Gaza
Kathy al Jubeh - Medical Aid for Palestinians
The Politics of Health: Claiming Humanitarian Space
Building on the forthcoming launch of The Lancet Palestine Health series on health in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) by the Birzeit University Institute of Community and Public Health, this meeting will highlight the key findings of the series, the culmination of over two years of work and research. We will be joined by the authors of the series, a spectrum of the best researchers and epidemiologists from the occupied Palestinian territory, and their international counterparts.
Critically, this meeting will also highlight the health-related aspects and impact of the Israeli assault on Gaza between December 2008- January 2009, as well as the ongoing blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Please confirm your attendance by emailing march.conference@map-uk.org or by contacting Sophie Charman-Blower at Medical Aid for Palestinians on +44 (0) 207 226 4114.
There is a lot to do in this world and in each specific society, time is running out to bring clear change, which is so desperately needed. This blog focuses on a very small, but very troubled region. Even if its seems to be without hope, never give up, we do not have another planet. Each of us can make a difference.
