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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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January 27th,
2009 - Doctors Show Horrific Proof of White Phosphorus Abuse in Gaza 1st news article
from Middle East Times |
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Doctors Show
Horrific Proof of White Phosphorus Abuse in Gaza By Joseph Mayton Middle East Times January 27, 2009 Cairo - With Israel's latest
war on Gaza over, international rights groups and medical professionals have
begun a campaign to reveal the human cost of the three-week war. In Cairo a
group of Egyptian doctors, who had traveled to Gaza during the war, showed
pictures of the devastating carnage and lambasted Israel for the illegal use
of incendiary white phosphorus on civilians. One of the most gruesome
photos presented at a public meeting at Egypt's Doctor's Syndicate Sunday was
of a three-year-old girl who had been extensively and deeply burned, in some
places revealing the bones. The dead girl's injuries were consistent with
those attributed to the chemical weapon, doctors said. Pointing to another picture,
Ibrahim Elgeady, a doctor from Cairo University, said: "This is [the
result of] white phosphorus. You can see how the entire body was burned as an
illegal result of this weapon." Although it is permissible
in war to use WP as smoke-screening agent to mask the moves of advancing
troops its incendiary properties make its use near civilians a war crime.
White phosphorus, or WP - or as American soldiers often refer to the chemical
weapon, 'Willy Peter' - has also been deployed in other battlefields. And
troops have been frequently caught out using it as an anti-personnel weapon. White phosphorus is fired
into the air from airborne or land vehicles where it bursts into thousands of
phosphorus crystals that form white-looking clouds. The crystals blow and
fall gently down. But if they touch skin they burn into it, boring holes deep
into the body without extinguishing. It will only stop burning when deprived
of oxygen. An agonizing death is frequent. Even if the victim survives,
without immediate and specialized treatment - which is usually not available
to the populations that come under attack by the weapon - their body absorbs
the chemical into the liver, heart and kidneys. "There is no question
that this was used against civilians by Israel," the doctor continued. The doctors were part of an
Arab Doctor's Union that was allowed into Gaza through Egypt's Rafah Border
Crossing with the Palestinian territory during the war to help the
understaffed Gaza hospitals. The group of six Egyptian
doctors spoke of their experience during the war, showing the wounds through
pictures they took during their time on the ground. "It was obvious to
everyone that it was white phosphorus in civilian areas," a pediatrician
from al-Azhar Ahmed el-Sadat said at the round table meeting. White phosphorus weapons were
invented during the chemical weapons rush that followed World War I. The
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has continually pressed for
the end of weapons that are more susceptible to larger civilian casualties. In a statement against incendiary
weapons, the ICRC said: "Particular care must be taken to avoid, and in
any event to minimize incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians
and damage to civilian objects." The United States uses the
weapon; most recently in the Iraq war, and before that in Vietnam. Israel
used it in the 2006 Lebanon war and before that during the 1982 invasion of
Lebanon, and Russia has been known to use it. Human Rights Watch and
several other rights groups have been pressing unsuccessfully for the countries
to be taken to task for its illegal use. While not actually denying
that WP was used in the Gaza offensive, Israel has maintained that it
"does not use any illegal weapon." The Egyptian doctors who
witnessed firsthand the events in Gaza, disagree with the official Israeli
line, arguing that it was unquestionably used in populated areas and was
therefore used "as a weapon against civilians." "We saw people come to
hospitals with burns. We took pictures of what we saw and expect an
investigation," Elgeady said. London-based Amnesty
International has called on Israel to disclose what weapons it used during
the war, saying there is irrefutable evidence that WP was used "in
built-up civilian areas." Donatella Rovera, who is
heading an Amnesty International investigation team in Gaza, said in a
statement that "some victims of Israeli air strikes were brought in with
charred and sharply severed limbs," which the Egyptian doctors argued
was further evidence of WP. Also documenting the horrors
of war is the online Palestinian Holocaust Memorial Museum, which also
presented evidence of WP. They hope that by showing these
"atrocities" the world will begin to help end the use of such
weapons against civilians. "We want to show the
world what has happened to Palestinians, much in the same way that other
events and catastrophes are documented," said Mohammed Yehia of the
organization. He says that step-by-step,
the interactive Web site will begin to help reveal the struggle that
Palestinians are dealing with on a daily basis. External link: http://tinyurl.com/czqau2 Israel Acts to Block War
Crimes Charges By Jonathan Cook Middle East Online January 27, 2009 Jerusalem - Mounting fear in
Israel that the country’s leaders face war crimes charges over their
involvement in the recent Gaza offensive pushed officials into a frenzy of
activity at the weekend to forestall legal actions abroad. The urgency was underlined
after rumours last week that Belgian authorities might arrest Tzipi Livni,
Israel’s foreign minister, if she attended a summit of European counterparts
in Brussels on Wednesday. In an indication of how seriously the matter is judged,
Ms Livni’s advisers were on the verge of cancelling her trip when the story
was revealed to be a hoax. Nonetheless, officials are
braced for real attempts to arrest senior political and military figures
following a warning from the country’s chief law officer, Menachem Mazuz,
that Israel will soon face “a wave of international lawsuits”. In response, the government
is setting up a special task force to work on legal defences, has barred the
media from naming or photographing army officers involved in the Gaza attack,
and has placed restrictions on overseas visits. Today, ministers were
expected to approve an aid package to help soldiers fight warrants abroad for
their arrest. The concern about war crimes
trials follows a series of pronouncements by Richard Falk, the United
Nations’ special rapporteur on the occupied territories and a professor
emeritus of international law at Princeton University in the United States. He has accused Israel of
gravely violating the laws of war during its three-week offensive, which
killed more than 1,300 Gazans, most of them civilians, and wounded thousands
more. “There is a well-grounded
view that both the initial attacks on Gaza and the tactics being used by
Israel are serious violations of the UN charter, the Geneva conventions,
international law and international humanitarian law,” he said during the
final stages of fighting. Since they gained entry to
the tiny enclave after a ceasefire declared a week ago, Amnesty International
and Human Rights Watch have added their voice. The two human-rights
organisations have censured Israel over its failure to distinguish between
Palestinian civilians and combatants as well as its use of controversial
weapons. There is incontrovertible
evidence, both groups say, that Israel fired white phosphorus shells over
Gaza, despite its banned use in civilian areas, setting homes on fire and
burning civilians caught under the shower of phosphorus. Kenneth Roth, the director
of Human Rights Watch, has also lambasted Israel for using high-explosive
shells in built-up areas of Gaza, even though the artillery has a blast range
of up to 300 metres. Initial indications suggest
that the army may have resorted also to an experimental weapon - dense inert
metal explosive, or Dime - that severs limbs and ruptures the internal organs
of anyone close to the blast. The International Atomic
Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, is investigating claims forwarded
by Saudi Arabia that depleted uranium shells were used in Gaza. In addition, human-rights
groups have begun documenting instances of the Israeli army’s targeting of
civilian buildings, including UN schools, and of soldiers taking Palestinian
civilians as human shields. A senior Israeli official
told Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper: “As far as the international arena is
concerned, Israel is entering what is probably its darkest era.” In a further sign of
concern, an unnamed government minister was quoted last week as saying: “When
the scale of the damage in Gaza becomes clear, I will no longer take a
vacation in Amsterdam, only at the international court in The Hague” - a
reference to the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands that tries
war crimes. Over the past week about 300
human-rights organisations have jointly prepared a 37-page dossier of
evidence to be presented to the court. According to legal experts,
it will be difficult to try Israel at the ICC because it is not a signatory
to the Rome statute governing the court’s jurisdiction and function. However,
an ad hoc tribunal similar to the ones set up to deal with war crimes in Rwanda
and the former Yugoslavia may be an option. The ICC might also try to pursue
individual Israeli commanders for war crimes. A more pressing concern for
Israel is that European human-rights activists, especially in Britain and
Belgium, could use local legislation to initiate war crimes trials in their
domestic courts against Israeli leaders. Such actions have been
launched before, most notably in 2005 when Doron Almog, the former Israeli
commander in Gaza, avoided being arrested in the United Kingdom only after he
was warned to remain seated in a plane after his arrival at Heathrow airport.
Major Gen Almog had overseen the demolition of hundreds of homes in Gaza
three years earlier. In an attempt to make life
more difficult for Israeli leaders, anonymous activists in Israel launched a
website (www.wanted.org.il) - “outing” those it accused of war crimes,
including Ehud Barak, the defence minister, Ehud Olmert, the prime minister,
and Ms Livni. It also identified most of the senior military command. Offering photographs and
information about each official’s alleged offence, the site provides contact
details for the ICC and tells visitors to alert the court when “the suspect
is outside of Israel’s borders”. To avert the danger of
arrests for war crimes, IsraeI hurriedly initiated a series of moves to
protect its leaders. A special task force, overseen by the prime minister’s
office, will convene in the next few days to start building a defence for
army commanders. The Israeli media suggested
experts on international law would seek to compile evidence that Hamas
stockpiled weapons in civilian buildings, and that the army went to great
efforts to warn residents to flee before bombing areas. The military censor is
excising from media reports all identifying information about senior officers
involved in the Gaza operation, and officers who wish to travel abroad will
be required first to seek the advice of military officials. External link:
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/Default.pl?id=30038 |