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Keeping an Eye on Balanced News

California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Soka University Japan - Transcend Art and Peace
Created: October 7, 2002
Latest Update: October 7, 2002
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

To Dear Habermas readers: I'm sorry. We are not a news site. I cannot post continual messages on what is happening from the Palestinian perspective and the Israeli perspective in the Middle East. I'll never get our text material up if I do. But this should have been enough this weekend to make you aware of the many stories of war. War is hell. War is not good for children and other living things. War is not a solution to social and sovereignty problems. I will occasionally post Dorothy Naor's messages to remind us of that.

Meanwhile, if you care, as I hope most of you do, use the Palestine Monitor and the Ha Aretz sites to follow the news, for this news is of a whole with that of the probable war on Iraq. I am posting links to both sites on the main site page and on the current weekly issues page, under the blue angel icon, last line. Remember, there is no such thing as the one true perspective. Reality and our lifeworld are many-faceted. And we must listen to each in good faith, if we are to live together in peace.

On Monday, October 7, 2002, Dorothy Naor of New Profile wrote, and requested that we make known:

Here are data on several incidents on today's news and in the newspapers. Please make the facts known.

1. [Ha'aretz front page, but not in either the English or Hebrew internet editions:] Heading "Unclear Where to Jail the Thousands Arrested by the IOF," Civilian Prison Authority Prisons or Military facilities. The figures cited show that 4,530 Palestinian prisoners are presently being held in 7 facilities : 950 at Ktsiot; 1,200 at Megido; 600 at Opher; 154 at Tsaphon; 159 at Sharon; 171 at Merkaz; and 1,296 at Darom. Statistics indicate that the numbers of arrested is likely to reach 3,000 annually. The problem is where to put them, and who will cover the expenses to keep them in prison: the military or the civil authority. Military prisons are already filled to 98% capacity, and reservists are called up to guard the prisoners. Almost 1000 are Administrative Detainees, whose length of incarceration is unknown. [For more on Administrative Detention see B'tselem. http://www.btselem.org/English/Statistics/Al_Aqsa_Fatalities.asp click "statistics," then "Administrative"; this will bring you to a chart of statistics; for the term and human rights re it click at the bottom "Administrative Detention."]

   In addition to the figures above, showing the huge numbers being detained, many without trial, the issue that arises in my mind is for how many years down the road does the military intend to annually arrest 3,000 Palestinians and for how many years does Israel intend to keep them in prison?

2. Not at all unusually, 2 days after Arafat called on Palestinian militants to abstain from acts within the 1967 borders, comes a massive attack by the IOF on Palestinians. Not only have numerous Palestinian innocents died and been injured in the attack, but also Israeli civilians are likely to pay the price. Thank you,Sharon.

   w w w . h a a r e t z d a i l y . c o m

   Monday, October 07, 2002

   At least 13 said killed, over 50 hurt in IDF raid in Gaza [the afternoon news on the radio reported over 100 injured] http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=216981&contrassID=1&subContrassID=0&sbSubContrassID=0

   By Amos Harel and Arnon Regular, Ha'aretz Correspondents, and News Agencies

   At least 13 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded when IDF tanks backed by helicopters raided a Palestinian neighborhood in the Gaza Strip early Monday morning, witnesses and hospital officials said.

   Several hours later, IDF troops fired assault rifles and machine guns into Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, where hundreds of people had gathered to learn about the fate of relatives, witnesses said. Four more people were wounded by army fire at the hospital, including a 14-year-old boy hit in the neck and a paramedic wounded in the chest.

   Israeli security officials called the operation "very important" and "obligatory" in striking at a Hamas stronghold that Israel had refrained from attacking since the start of the uprising more than two years ago.

   "The moment that the army went in there, they were fired on from every window and every opening, so our soldiers had to do the job," said Deputy Defense Minister Weizman Shiri. "The most militant of Hamas men are located there, and if damage was caused to innocent civilians, we can be sorry, but what can you do - this is war."

   The operation began in the pre-dawn hours, when Givati Brigade infantry troops, combat engineers and more than two dozen IDF tanks and armored vehicles rumbled into the al-Amal neighbourhood west of Khan Yunis.

   After a single missile was fired at a house in the area, viewed as a stronghold of Hamas activity, the troops were met by a volley of fire from Palestinian gunmen and a gunfight ensued. The circumstances of the raid were not clear, though the army said before the operation began that Palestinian militants had fired a rocket at a nearby settlement, causing no casualties.

   But as troops began to pull out of the area several hours later, a helicopter fired a second missile which struck close to a crowd of Palestinians who had ventured out of their shelters to return home, killing several people, witnesses and medics said.

   Brigadier-General Yisrael Ziv, commander of the IDF's Gaza Division, said Monday that the neighborhood was a Hamas "nest of terror" and that an initial investigation showed that IDF forces had aimed only at armed men.

   Ziv dismissed reports that the casualties were local residents en route to mosque services.

   The missile strike came at the end of the four-hour incursion. Residents said people came out into the streets around 4:30 A.M. (02:30 GMT) when they heard the tanks pulling out, but two helicopters remained overhead, and one of them fired the missile.

   n the course of the operation, troops arrested none Palestinian suspect and found a number of explosive devices.

   Abed Ouda, 29, said he was parking his car when the missile struck. "I heard a huge explosion," he said, "and people were wounded and bleeding on the ground in front of my car."

   Dr. Mohammed Abu Dallal from the Nasser hospital said two of the dead were killed in the gunbattle, while at least seven more "were killed as a result of the missile fire."

   An IDF source confirmed an operation was taking place in the area but would not give details.

   Erekat denounces raid as massacre
   Palestinian Minister Saeb Erekat denounced the Israeli raid as a massacre and called on the international community to protect the Palestinians.

   Erekat said he believed the raid was timed to disrupt the visit of Javier Solana, the foreign policy chief of the European Union, to the region.

   "Every time we witness efforts to revive the peace process and put it back on track, like those being exerted now by Solana, the Israeli government moves to conduct such war crimes and murder innocent civilians because the end game of the Israeli government is to resume full occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank," he said. A senior aide to Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, called for an international peace-keeping force to protect the Palestinians.

   "This is a crime that proves that Israel should be punished and isolated. There should be international sanctions. Israel is sabotaging efforts by the Quartet and the U.S. to revive peace efforts," he told reporters in Ramallah.

3. The following informaton was in Ha'aretz in Hebrew but not in English. The link to the Hebrew web site is Ha Aretz in Hebrew

   Officers in the IOF Confirm that Settlers Shoot at Palestinian laborers going to their fields or other areas. The IOF does nothing to prevent this.

4. From w w w . h a a r e t z d a i l y . c o m:

   Monday, October 07, 2002

   Crimes, no punishment
   By Joseph Algazy
   Story at Ha Aretz

   Last Monday, on the same day Justice Minister Meir Sheetrit received the Amnesty International Report containing the data on the large numbers of Palestinian and Israeli children killed in the current intifada, children were killed by IDF gunfire: Mahmoud Zaghloul (12) in the casbah in Nablus and Rami al-Barbari (13) in the Balata refugee camp in the city. And at the weekend, two more Palestinian children were killed by IDF gunfire: Mohammed Zeid (15) of the village of Nazlat and Amer Rajab (15) of Nablus.

   The Amnesty report was published on the eve of the closing meeting of the UN Children's Rights Committee in Geneva, held at the end of last week. The committee operates under the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Israel is a signatory. At the meeting, the committee heard from representatives of the Israeli government clarifications of a report the government submitted last year on the condition of children in Israel, in which it ignored the condition of Palestinian children in the occupied territories. The committee was also presented with two other reports, which were prepared by the Palestinian branch of Defense for Children International (DCI) and the Israeli branch of that organization.

   Under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, "a child means every human being below the age of 18 years." This definition is accepted by human rights organizations in Israel, in the territories, and in the rest of the world. The UN definition is not accepted by the IDF, which in the territories defines a minor as any Palestinian who has not yet reached the age of 16. Behind this disagreement is the argument that people age 16 to 18 can serve as fighters.

   A comparison of the figures on the number of children who have been killed in the Amnesty report with those in the report issued by B'Tselem, The Israel Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, shows that in the period between September 29, 2000, and the end of September, 2002, 271 Palestinian children were killed - about 16 percent of the total number of Palestinians who were killed in that period - and 73 Israeli children, accounting for 13 percent of the Israelis who were killed. Among those killed were very young children and babies. The number of Palestinian children is not precise, since not all those who were killed in the Defensive Shield Campaign in Jenin and Nablus are known. In total, 344 Israeli and Palestinian children are known to have been killed in the intifada, of whom 79 percent were Palestinian and 21 percent Israeli.

   According to the data published by DCI in Palestine, a larger number of Palestinian children - 325 - were killed during that period. The difference between the figures given by Amnesty and B'Tselem and those given by DCI stems in part from the fact that this organization includes in its figures children who died as a result of delays at roadblocks on the way to the hospital. Clearly, in addition to the children who were killed, there are thousands of children who have been injured; some of them are permanently handicapped. The UN Children's Rights Committee this weekend called upon both Israel and the Palestinians to stop shooting at children with the aim of hitting them, to stop involving children in the armed conflict and to investigate and punish anyone involved in hurting children.

   Deadly force

   The number of Palestinian children who have been killed is divided almost evenly between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In the West Bank, 141 children have been killed; in Gaza, 127; and three in East Jerusalem. Of them, 131 were killed in the first year of the intifada and 140 in the second. On average, about 11 children have been killed every month. The record months for the killing of children were the first months of the intifada, October and November, 2000, with 28 and 38 children killed respectively, along with April, 2002, the month of the Defensive Wall campaign (at least 29 children killed).

   IDF bullets killed 231 Palestinian children. That is, 85 percent of the children who were killed were shot. An accusation that has been appearing in all the reports published by human rights organizations in Israel and internationally is that IDF soldiers are "trigger-happy" and that during the suppression of demonstrations and various kinds of protest actions, in which children also participate, the IDF "employs exaggerated force that is deadly and disproportionate."

   For example, the Amnesty reports cites testimony by members of its delegation who witnessed a demonstration in Rafah on October 10, 2000, in which about 200 people participated, most of them elementary school students, who threw stones. According to the Amnesty representatives, even though there was no danger to the lives of IDF soldiers, the soldiers used unjustified deadly force, firing live ammunition at the demonstrators. The shooting injured Sami Fathi Abu Jazar (12) in the head; he died the following day of his injuries. Six other children were also wounded.

   Fourteen Palestinian children (5 percent) have been killed during the intifada as a result of IDF aerial attacks in residential areas or as bystanders during attacks from the air on intifada activists. The most outstanding example occurred on July 22 of this year, when the Air Force dropped a 1-ton bomb on a populated neighborhood where senior Hamas operative Salah Shahadeh lived. In the bombardment, 17 people were killed; of them, eight were children.

   Among the others killed were seven children killed by tank shells. And in November, 2001, five youngsters were killed when a booby trap blew up as they were on their way to school in Khan Yunis. A boy of 12, Fares Housam Fares al-Saadi, was killed on the evening of June 21 this year when IDF soldiers blew up an uninhabited house near his family's home in Jenin. According to witnesses, the IDF soldiers gave no prior warning before they demolished the house. Three Palestinian children were shot and killed by Jewish settlers in the territories.

   According to the B'Tselem data, in addition to the 271 Palestinian children who were killed by Israelis during the intifada, another nine Palestinian children were killed by Palestinians. One of them, a 12-year-old boy, was killed "during the course of a clash between armed Palestinians and Palestinian civilians who tried to prevent them from firing at IDF positions," and eight other minors were killed "by Palestinian security forces in circumstances unconnected to suspicion of having collaborated with Israel."

   From incomplete B'Tselem data it appears that as the result of delays at roadblocks and the prevention of evacuation to hospitals, at least 13 children have died, among them eight babies. For example, Rana al-Jayussi of the village of Qour in the West Bank went into labor on March 9 of this year. As the roads into and out of the village were blocked, Jayoussi had to give birth at the home of a midwife in the village. The baby died during the birth. As Jayoussi's condition became worse, her husband tried to bring her to the nearest hospital, in Qalqilyah, but she was delayed by IDF soldiers at a roadblock. When she finally reached the hospital in an ambulance, doctors declared her dead on arrival.

   Israeli children

   Thirty-seven Israeli children have been killed during the intifada, up until the end of September of this year. Of them, 49, or about two-thirds, died in suicide terror attacks. June, 2001 (the Dolphinarium), March, 2002 (Beit Yisrael) and June, 2002 (10 children killed in six separate suicide attacks), were the months in which most children died in suicide attacks, and altogether, on average, three Israeli children were killed each month. In cases in which children were killed, the testimonies of witnesses and bystanders was especially shocking, for example in the attacks at the entrance to the Dolphinarium discotheque in Tel Aviv (June 1, 2001) and the Sbarro pizzeria in downtown Jerusalem (August 9, 2001). In addition to those killed in suicide terror attacks, 16 children (22 percent) were shot and killed and three were killed by stone-throwing.

   Among the Israeli children who have been killed, 13 were under 6 years old, as compared to 16 among the Palestinians. That is, among babies and pre-schoolers almost equal numbers of Palestinian and Israeli children have been killed. As among the Palestinians, the largest number of Israeli children who were killed were in the older age groups. Forty-eight Israeli children aged 14 to 18 have been killed since the beginning of the intifada, about two-thirds of the total number killed. That is, there have been on average 12 children killed in each of the older age groups.

   Human rights groups in Israel and internationally say that in violation of the principles of international humanitarian law, Israel and the Palestinians frequently harm or kill children. The Amnesty report stresses: "The pattern of killing of children which has become so entrenched and widespread in the past two years developed against a background of impunity for the perpetrators of such crimes over many years prior to the current intifada. Between 1987 and 2000, in the 13 years which preceded the start of the current intifada some 280 Palestinian children were killed, most of them by the IDF and some by Israeli settlers, in the Occupied Territories. In the same period 18 Israeli children were killed by Palestinians, most of them in Israel and some in the Occupied Territories. Invariably those responsible for such crimes were granted impunity."

   According to Amnesty, in most of the cases in which Palestinian children were killed by Israelis, the Israeli authorities did not conduct appropriate investigations. Amnesty charges: "The large numbers of children killed and injured and the circumstances in which they were killed indicates that little or no care was taken by the IDF to avoid causing harm to children."

   The report of the international organization quotes statements made at official meetings between its representatives and officials of the Israeli government and the IDF. The Head of the Legal Department of the IDF is quoted as having said at a meeting on January 16, 2001: "No army carries out investigations in warfare. At another meeting that was held on May 14, 2002, another IDF representative is reported to have said: "I don't need to investigate. We made mistakes that caused casualties on both sides but no Palestinian was killed deliberately." And on August 5, 2002, the Deputy Director of the Human Rights Division in the Israeli Foreign Ministry told Amnesty International delegates that in an armed struggle, "Investigations are not opened unless it is suspected that something is wrong... usually investigations are not opened unless it is known that it was deliberate."

   The day after the publication of the Amnesty report on the killing of children, in response to a question from MK Zahava Gal-On (Meretz) on this matter in the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer said that after every incident of this sort the IDF conducts an investigation. The statement by the Defense Minister contradicts the statements by IDF representatives cited above. Gal-On demanded of the chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, MK Haim Ramon (Labor) that he summon the Head of the Legal Department of the IDF to the committee to deal with the accusations brought up by human rights organizations, including those in the latest Amnesty International report, according to which the IDF does not take care to preserve the lives of Palestinian children, and those who are responsible for harming Palestinians - both soldiers in the IDF and among the Jewish settlers in the territories, enjoy impunity.

   The Amnesty report's criticism of the armed Palestinian organizations and the Palestinian Authority in the matter of killing children is also severe. The report charges: "Palestinians who were responsible for the killing of Israeli children after the establishment of the PA in 1993 also benefited from impunity."

   Amnesty calls upon the states that are providing military equipment to Israel and the Palestinian Authority to demand effective and enforceable guarantees to ensure that this equipment will not be used to kill children. The international organization has renewed its call for sending international human rights observers to Israel and the territories.