Rest in peace (April 15th, 2011), you beautiful human being. The world’s worse off without you.
14th April 2012
Reblogged From stay-human
Notes: 40
The Gaza Strip.
Posting because I wanted to have a permanent link to this somewhere.
Happy Birthday Vittorio Arrigoni. May you rest in peace.
(Source: existentialist-trotskyist)
At 11:25 AM on December 27th , 2008, Israel began Operation Cast Lead with heavy air strikes throughout the Gaza Strip. December 27th 2008 marked the beginning of the most extensive Israeli military operation in the Gaze Strip in over four decades of occupation. In the three weeks to follow, Israel inundated the Gaza Strip with bombs and other indiscriminate weapons, and a ground invasion followed in early January. During a press briefing on December 27th, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reassured the international community that this was a response to an imminent terrorist threat. “…one thing must be clear,” he asserted, “We are not fighting against the people of Gaza. I take this opportunity to appeal to the people of Gaza…you, the citizens of Gaza are not our enemies. Hamas, jihad, the other terrorist organizations…are our enemies.” Later, he succinctly reiterated the [purported] precision and acute character of the strikes, stating that “the efforts that we made [in Gaza] today were focused entirely on military targets.”
And yet, the casualties of Operation Cast Lead were overwhelmingly civilian casualties. The three-week offensive resulted in the deaths of over 1400 Palestinians, at least four-fifths of which being civilians. According to the War Crimes Against Children Report, the offensive exhibited a colossal failure by the Israeli authorities to uphold international humanitarian law. They failed to adequately protect children and failed to make the necessary provisions to differentiate between civilian and military targets, resulting in an indiscriminate destruction of homes, schools, and medical facilities, including structures in which displaced families and individuals sought shelter.
Purportedly, Israel’s goal was to deter rocket attacks headed towards Israel from Hamas-affiliated groups. However, various memos made accessible through wikileaks indicate that the ceasefire was maintained throughout the second half of 2008, but that Israel was concerned not with a military threat but a political one.
For conflict pauses of different durations (i.e., periods of time when no one is killed on either side), we show here the percentage of times from the Second Intifada in which Israelis ended the period of nonviolence by killing one or more Palestinians (black), the percentage of times that Palestinians ended the period of nonviolence by killing Israelis (grey), and the percentage of times that both sides killed on the same day (white). Virtually all periods of nonviolence lasting more than a week were ended when the Israelis killed Palestinians first. We include here the data from all pause durations that actually occurred.
Thus, a systematic pattern does exist: it is overwhelmingly Israel, not Palestine, that kills first following a lull. Indeed, it is virtually always Israel that kills first after a lull lasting more than a week.
Remember this whenever you hear about “cycle of violence” or how Israel can’t trust Palestinians because Palestinians are so violent.
Last week, the New Statesman published an article of mine about the anniversary of ‘Operation Cast Lead’ on their website. The following day, former media spokesperson for the UK Zionist Federation Jonathan Sacerdoti responded by defending Israel’s actions in the assault on Gaza.
Sacerdoti’s argument was essentially two-fold: firstly, that Israel did what it could to minimise civilian casualties, and secondly, that Israel was above all else acting in response to rocket fire and to keep its civilians safe.
Minimising civilian casualties
Preferring not to contest the evidence accumulated by the likes of the Red Cross, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) and Israeli human rights group B’tselem, Sacerdoti instead chose to rely on Colonel Richard Kemp, the former British military man who now tells hasbara conferences about a “global conspiracy” targeting Israel.
Quoting almost verbatim from a speech Kemp made in Tel Aviv, Sacerdoti claims that “a study published by the United Nations” shows how “the steps taken” by the IDF “to avoid civilian deaths” led to the “the lowest ratio of civilian to combatant deaths in any asymmetric conflict in the history of warfare” (seems the ‘Most Moral Army in the World’ never does things by halves).
Sacerdoti does not give any details of this “study”. Kemp has cited it on a number of occasions, and it is most likely a reference to a decade-old, 24-page report made by the Secretary-General to the Security Council “on the protection of civilians in armed conflict”. In the opening paragraphs, the report notes:
It is now conventional to say that, in recent decades, the proportion of war victims who are civilians has leaped dramatically, to an estimated 75 per cent.
Sacerdoti (via Kemp) then claims that the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths in Gaza was “less than one-to-one”. This is contradicted by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), which gives a figure of 82.2% non-combatants, by Al-Haq’s statistics of “over 83%” civilian deaths, and also by B’Tselem, who say 55% “did not take part in the hostilities” (a number that rises to 73% civilian deaths if you include “police officers killed in police stations”).
Thus even the focus on the ratio, itself a deliberate distraction from the documented breaches of international law, is flawed. It’s not the first time that Sacerdoti has taken a creative approach to ‘facts’. Speaking in the immediate aftermath of Israel’s murderous attack on the Gaza-bound flotilla in 2010, Sacerdoti asserted that Israeli forces on the Mavi Marmara were attacked with “explosive grenades” and “live fire” before they had used “any kind of live fire in return”.
I split the article up for easier reading. I’ve heard people use Richard Kemp as a reference before and it is nice to find out more about him.
Sacerdoti’s second main argument is to focus on rocket fire in order to say that the Israeli government was purely “protecting Israeli civilians”. The claim is that “Operation Cast Lead was undeniably effective in reducing terror attacks from the Gaza strip. The numbers speak for themselves”.
Coincidentally, I have recently asked the IDF Spokesperson, via the official Twitter account, when has been the quietest period for rocket fire from Gaza since 2008. It proved surprisingly difficult to get a straight answer. But it is clear why there is a reluctance to answer the question.
In 2008, until the ceasefire on 19 June, an average of over 90 rockets and mortars a week were fired from Gaza into Israel. During the Hamas-enforced ceasefire that lasted over 4 months, the weekly average was 2 projectiles. Since then, the number of rockets has never been as low - including in the months after Operation Cast Lead. In other words, this negotiated lull in 2008 has proved the most effective way of protecting Israeli civilians (a ceasefire that Israel, not Hamas, unilaterally ended). The numbers speak for themselves.
On the third anniversary of Israel’s twenty-two day invasion of the besieged Gaza Strip, Chicagoans took to the streets to honor the fallen with a mass balloon release.
Among the 1,400 Palestinians killed during Israel’s invasion were at least 340 children who were, in most cases, playing soccer in the streets, sleeping with their favorite stuffed animals, or running errands for mom and dad when the missiles hit. Chicago Movement for Palestinian Rights (CMPR), a youth-led collective, organized this gathering to symbolically commemorate these lost lives. Organizers in Nabi Saleh arranged an identical event the day before but were attacked with Israeli tear gas and water cannons.
Each balloon was tagged with the name and age of one of the killed children. The materials used were all biodegradable and the seed paper used for the tags is expected to bloom flowers wherever the tags land, a small but powerful tribute to the beauty and resilience of our fellow Palestinians in Gaza.
Yesterday in Chicago, more than 300 balloons were released in downtown Grant Park — one balloon for each child killed during Israel’s 22-day assault on the Gaza Strip three years ago.
Attached to the balloons were the names and descriptions of each child. The organizers, the youth-led Chicago Movement for Palestinian Rights, stated in their call for the event:
The balloons are 100% biodegradable and the cards will be made from flowerseed paper. So wherever they land, these cards will plant seeds in the ground that will bloom into beautiful flowers in the spring. This is our way of paying tribute to the memory of each child.
At least a hundred people attended (this is my conservative estimate) and organizers announced that people came from out of state to participate. Attendees assembled in Millennium Park and marched to Grant Park, chanting solidarity messages.
A similar action was planned the day before in the occupied West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, which recently mourned the murder of Mustafa Tamimi, killed after he was shot in the face by a tear gas canister during the village’s weekly protest. The Israeli army and border police repressively dispersed Friday’s protest and arrests were reported.
The story of Al Samouni’s family of Gaza is tragic and appalling. According to Al Haq’s field research members, the story began on Saturday, 3 January 2009, with Israeli incursion into and firing at the Al Zaytoun neighborhood.
The following day, on 4 January 2009, Israeli occupying forces bombed the same area killing one Palestinian.
On Monday at 7:00 Am, 5 January 2009, again Israeli occupying forces bombed the very same area of Hay (neighborhood) Al Zaytoun. One of the missiles struck the third floor of Tallal Hilmi Al Samouni’s home. Traumatized, the family nonetheless managed to extinguish the fire. Earlier the 16-member family—including the grandfather, grandmother, their children and families—had evacuated into the first floor in fear of the bombs that were striking Gaza.
As the situation deteriorated and the shelling intensified, three additional Al Samouni families sought refuge in Tallal’s home. The families included: Ibrahim Al Samouni (12 members), Rashad Al Samouni (11 members), and Nafiz Al Samouni (10 members). Altogether 49 members of Al Samouni’s family gathered at Tallal’s house.
Later on Monday, the Israeli occupying forces knocked on the door of Tallal’s home and asked the congregated family members to move to Wael Al Samouni’s home (11 members). The Israeli occupying forces also asked the men to lift their shirts on their way out (a dehumanizing gesture across all cultures), then surrounded Wael’s home and left the 60 members of Al Samouni family without water for 24 hours. As for electricity, it has been cut off entirely in the strip since Israel’s bombardment began on 27 December 2009.
The next day, 6 January 2009, the family heard shooting nearby, followed by calm. Some thought that the Israeli occupying forces had withdrawn from the neighborhood, and so one of the men left the front door to bring water from a tank placed in front of the house for the children, who were thirsty. To his surprise, the Israeli occupying forces and their tanks were still surrounding the house, which made him immediately turn back inside.
Five minutes later, the tanks shelled a missile into the house and injured seven people. Only three minutes later the Israelis aimed another missile close by, which killed many Al Samouni family members—predominantly children and women.
…
Names of Children Killed
• Azza Salah Al Samouni, 3 years of age
• Waleed Rashad Al Samouni, 17 years of age
• Ishaq Ibrahim Al Samouni, 14 years of age
• Ismail Ibrahim Al Samouni, 16 years of age
• Rifka Wael Al Samouni, 8 years of age
• Fares Wael Al Samouni, 12 years of age
• Huda Nael Al Samouni, 17 years of age
• Ahmad Atieh Al Samouni, 14 years of age
• Mu’tassim Mohammed Al Samouni, 6 years of age
• Mohammed Hilmi Al Samouni, 5 years of ageNames of Women Killed
• Rahma Mohammed Al Samouni, 50 years of age
• Safa’ Hilmi Al Samouni, 25 years of age
• Maha Mohammed Al Samouni, 22 years of age
• Rabbab Azzat Al Samouni, 32 years of age
• Laila Nabih Al Samouni, 40 years of age
• Rifqa Mohammed Al Samouni, 50 years of age
• Hannan Khamis Al Samouni, 36 years of ageNames of Men Killed
• Tallal Hilmi Al Samouni, 55 years of age
• Attieh Hilmi Al Samouni, 25 years of age
• Rashad Hilmi Al Samouni, 42 years of age
• Tawfiq Rashad Al Samouni, 23 years of age
• Mohammed Ibrahim, 26 years of age
• Ziyad Izzat Al Samouni, 28 years of age
• Nidal Ahmad Al Samouni, 30 years of age
• Hamdi Maher Al Samouni, 23 years of age
• Hamdi Mahmoud Al Samouni, 70 years of age
People asked why I called it the Gaza Massacre. Here’s one of the 1300 reasons why.
