Human Rights Watch (HRW) this week released a report detailing the unlawful killings and torture of Palestinians by Hamas during the recent Gaza conflict. This report confirms Amnesty’s own findings, published in February, of instances where Hamas murdered and tortured Palestinians. They accused the victims of “collaborating” with Israel, or the victims were members of opposing Palestinian parties, including Fatah.
The HRW report provides a more in depth analysis of the situation. The report claims that Hamas forces and masked gunmen alleged to be members of Hamas extra-judicially executed more than 30 people since December and injured dozens more by shooting them in the leg. Those responsible must be held accountable for their actions and the government of Hamas should address these crimes. According to HRW, the Hamas authorities have begun investigations into only four of these cases, but more needs to be done. Hamas should work to uphold international law and protect human rights as it has said that it will do.
Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) received a number of letters about our recent action asking the State Department why they allowed a massive shipment of arms to Israel despite clear evidence of Israel violating international law during the recent Gaza conflict. We thought it might be useful to publish anonymously some of these letters, along with our response, so readers could better understand why we’re promoting such an action.
I think Amnesty International also needs to determine if arms shipments to Israeli may be a response to the ongoing policy of Hamas. The policy includes provocative shelling of Israeli communities and an avowed position calling for destruction of Jewish State.
Surely a more moderate coalition of Palestinian interests would be a step toward a more stable two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians.
It would be a far better policy choice than random shelling of Israeli communities and incidental suicide bombings within Israeli borders to disrupt the peace process and give a poltical edge to hardliners within Israel.
Those who have supported the work of Amnesty International expect more even handed and less partisan posturing in this delicate situation.
As an organization that promotes the respect of internationally recognized human rights laws and principles, AIUSA believes it is critical to address violations by all parties to the conflict. As such Amnesty International’s International Secretariat (IS), the part of Amnesty that is engaged with most of the investigative research, has repeatedly condemned both parties to the recent conflict in Gaza for violations or abuses of human rights. For an example of an Amnesty report on Hamas, please see: “Hamas waged a deadly campaign as war devastated Gaza dated February 12, 2009“.
Since AIUSA is the U.S. section of Amnesty International, we have a special duty to ensure the U.S. government is promoting the respect of human rights when it provides arms and other military equipment to Israel and other fighting forces around the world. Amnesty’s investigative research uncovered significant evidence that Israel violated international humanitarian law during the recent conflict in Gaza, which is why we are asking Secretary Clinton to explain why and under what conditions she approved the recent delivery of tons of weapons to Israel.
What is the history of A.I. regarding the acts of terrorism against Israel for the past 60 years?
You can find statements, reports and actions on Israel/Occupied Territories here and here.
Where can I find the report about Israel’s use of white phosphorous? This email makes it sound like it is certain that these chemicals were used: I need to see the report because the speculation has not been proven elsewhere as fact.
I would like to know what advice Amnesty International would provide to the United States if the United States were to unilaterally reverse the Gadsden Purchase <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadsden_Purchase> and return this land to Mexico, and then Mexico were to use this returned land to launch missiles, several times a day, on Phoenix and other nearby cities, and if this behavior continued for several years, and if the missiles were launched from population centers, including hospitals and elementary school yards.
California, Texas, and other southwestern states were once part of Mexico and are now part of the United States, and some people may view this as a historic wrong perpetrated by the United States against Mexico. But this would not cause right-thinking people to think that Mexican terrorist groups should be allowed to continue their murderous missile attacks against the United States.
If all this were happening, I think at some point the United States might conclude that there was no choice but to invade Mexico to stop the missiles.
So, by all means, continue to spotlight human rights abuses anywhere in the world, including those perpetrated by Israel, but a little context, please. Israel does not kill Palestinians for pleasure. With respect to Israel’s late 2008 invasion of Gaza, Israel used more care in avoiding civilian casualties than just about any other country in the world has ever done. (I challenge Amnesty International to identify any other invasion by any other country that faced similar challenges of rooting out multiple missile launch sites from population centers, and achieved any bit of this objective, with a smaller impact on non-combatants.)
The fact that civilians were killed and injured is attributable not to Israel, but to the abuse of human rights on the part of Hamas and other terrorist groups that choose to locate their missile launch sites in the most sensitive population centers.
(In contrast, Israel locates its military sites far from population centers, so that attackers can attack Israel’s military sites without fear of harming civilians. But those who attack Israel always go for maximum Israeli civilian deaths and ignore Israel’s military sites.)
By not providing any context and placing all of the blame on a party that responded to years of extreme provocation, Amnesty International is marginalizing itself among many knowledgeable, compassionate people, Jews and Gentiles alike, in the United States and around the world.
As the UN Charter enshrines, governments have a clear right and duty to defend itself and its citizens and residents. It is in when governments fail to respect international humanitarian or human rights law that Amnesty raises concerns. In the most recent conflict in Gaza, it was clear that in some cases the Israeli military did not take the necessary precautions to avoid civilian causalities. Responding specifically to the example you have raised, it is quite true that Hamas has launched missiles from civilian/residential areas. It, however, is also true that it is Hama’s modus operandi to leave the area within a minute of shooting the rocket. Thus, when the Israeli military launched attacks on these areas two hours after Hama launched the rockets, there were only civilians in the area.
I have no problem with the arm shipments to Israel,. That is a sovereign nation protecting themselves from an outside force that keeps attacking it to “push them into the sea”.
I do have a problem with AI lack of outrage and letter writing on the genocide of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka.
Tons of weapons are being shipped to that govt. and an ongoing genocide is happening right now in that country every minute…A sovereign government that is killing, maiming and starving their own citizens.!!! and your organization does not show much outrage.. and doesn’t make it a AI alert..
For as long as the conflict in Sri Lanka has been going, Amnesty has been raising concerns about both parties to conflict. Outside of arms transfers to Israel and Sri Lanka, you should also be aware that Amnesty has written reports and pushed for changes on arms transfers to many other countries such as Burma, Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Sudan, and Zimbabwe.
Despite reports of US weapons used in human rights violations in Gaza, another shipment has arrived and been unloaded in Israel. In January, Amnesty International along with other groups in Greece were able to divert and delay this shipment of arms, but on January 12, in the midst of the conflict, the ship disappeared from the radar near Greece. It reappeared March 23, traveling from Israel to the Ukraine. The Pentagon confirmed that on March 22, the cargo ship unloaded 300 containers of munitions to the Israeli port Ashdod. There is not too much to add to the statement of Amnesty’s Brian Wood:
Legally and morally, this U.S. arms shipment should have been halted by the Obama administration given the evidence of war crimes resulting from military equipment and munitions of this kind used by the Israeli forces.
Even still, President Obama has committed to a 10-year contract with a 25% increase in military aid totaling around $30 billion. There must be an immediate cease of arms trade to Israel and all Palestinian armed groups or the risk of serious human rights violations continues. The US government clearly owes us some answers as to why the recent arms shipment was delivered.
Although the UN initiated a Board of Inquiry into allegations of war crimes in Gaza, Dion Nissenbaum, Jerusalem Bureau Chief for McClatchy news company, says
”I’m not sure what impact this UN report is going to have.” He continues to explain, “I think the only thing that the Israeli government will look at is reports from Israeli soldiers. Israel has always been skeptical of the United Nations, the international press, and they are certainly skeptical of what comes out of the Palestinians.”
Stories from members of the Israeli forces came out recently and created a firestorm of discussion within Israel about accusations which had already been levelled by human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the international media and other NGO’s working in the area. These stories from the soldiers were given more credit than all the evidence presented from outside sources.
Sadly, these stories were discounted out of hand by investigators and the IDF investigation has been closed already saying the stories by the IDF members were based on ‘hearsay’.
So will there ever be justice for the victims of the human rights violations that took place during the Gaza crisis?
Amnesty Int’l has been calling for an independent, impartial international inquiry into human rights violations by all parties involved be undertaken from the beginning and has said that the UN inquiry is insufficient in that it only looks into attacks on UN personnel and facilities. Other human rights groups are also calling for an independent inquiry and look on the IDF’s eagerness to close the investigation into the IDF members’ stories as questionable:
“the speedy closing of the investigation immediately raises suspicions that [it] was merely the army’s attempt to wipe its hands of all blame for illegal activity…”
UPDATE (April 3, 12:10pm): The UN Human Rights Council announced today that the former chief prosecutor of two criminal tribunals, Richard J. Goldstone will lead a probe into allegations of war crimes committed during Gaza crisis between December 27th, 2008 and January 18th, 2009 by all parties involved. This investigation is separate from the UN Board of Inquiry created by the UN Security Council which was formed to look into specific attacks on UN personnel and facilities in Gaza.
The Guardian website posted three incredible videos March 23rd by Clancy Chassay, Christian Bennett, Sarah Brodbin, Maggie O’Kane and Mustafa Khalili. The Guardian team conducted their own investigations into some of the charges that Israel committed war crimes during the Gaza offensive.
The first video covers the use of precision weapons, many fired by unmanned drones, to attack civilians. Amnesty International mentioned these drones in their report ‘Fuelling conflict: Foreign arms supplies to Israel/Gaza’. The fact that these unmanned drones are used to attack as well as surveillance is a fact usually censored by the IDF on Israeli reporters and foreign reporters based in the region.
The second video deals with allegations by both sides of human shielding. Amnesty issued a report on how both Israel and armed Palestinian groups, including Hamas, were using military tactics that endangered civilians. Chassay also mentions the deadly campaign that Hamas undertook during the crisis to injure and kill ‘collaborators’ and political opponents which Amnesty also investigated.
The third video shows footage of attacks on medical personnel while trying to tend to wounded and attacks on hospitals and medical facilities. Amnesty also covered this issue in the blog, LiveWire and in a report. [Donatella Rovera, senior researcher for AI on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, posted blog entries while on the fact finding mission to southern Israel and the Gaza Strip.]
In a series about the lax rules of engagement of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the Israeli newspaper Haaretz is currently publishing testimonies of Israeli soldiers who participated in the recent fighting in Gaza. The first story in today’s edition describes an incident of an IDF sharpshooter who mistakenly shot a Palestinian mother and her two children:
There was a house with a family inside …. We put them in a room. Later we left the house and another platoon entered it, and a few days after that there was an order to release the family (…)
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 okay, and he should hold his fire and he … he did what he was supposed to, like he was following his orders.
(..) The sharpshooter saw a woman and children approaching him, closer than the lines he was told no one should pass. He shot them straight away. In any case, what happened is that in the end he killed them.
In response to the publication of the testimonies, the IDF today ordered an investigation into the alleged violations of the army’s rules of engagement.
We have previously criticized both Israeli soldiers and Palestinian fighters for endangering the lives of Palestinian civilians – including by using them as human shields.
The top dogs of international justice and reconciliation today called on UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and UN member states to set up a UN commission of inquiry into the Gaza conflict, adding a powerful voice to extend the current insufficient investigation beyond attacks against UN facilities.
The impressive group of signatories surely knows what they are talking about: they are the world’s top investigators and judges, having worked on transitional justice issues in countries like Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, Sierra Leona and South Africa – among others. Signatories include Richard Goldstone, Mary Robinson and Desmond Tutu.
In their letter they identify a key issue of why a proper investigation is so important, and how it will ultimately help to prevent future violence:
Without setting the record straightin a credible and impartial manner, it will be difficult for those communities that have borne the heavy cost of violence to move beyond the terrible aftermath of conflict and help build a better peace.
A prompt, independent and impartial investigation would provide a public record of gross violations of international humanitarian law committed and provide recommendations on how those responsible for crimes should be held to account. We have seen at first hand the importance of investigating the truth and delivering justice for the victims of conflict and believe it is a precondition to move forward and achieve peace in the Middle East.
Additionally, I want to add one point: in setting the record straight, it will be possible to assign individual responsibility for the crimes committed, as opposed to group responsibility, a further key requirement to prevent further conflict.
If anyone can explain to me why attacks against UN installations, like the UN compound in Gaza City, by Israeli forces are worth investigating, while attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure in both Gaza and Southern Israel are ignored – please go ahead. And if you agree with me on the importance of this issue, support the call for full accountability.
PS: Thanks to Crisis Action for initiating this letter!
Should Palestinians from Gaza be treated differently under US refugee law? According to Senator Jon Kyl (R – AZ), the answer is yes.
A Palestinian boy pours water into a dish for a woman as she sits on the rubble of her home in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip , March 6, 2009. (c) MOHAMMED ABED/AFP/Getty Images
Last Friday, Senator Kyl introduced an amendment to the Omnibus Appropriations bill, which adds the following line to page 942: “None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be made available to resettle Palestinians from Gaza into the United States.” This amendment comes after a time of conflict, which sharply deteriorated the existing humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Contrary to a policy of 30 years, which extends protection to refugees on the basis of need, this amendment seeks to discriminate against an entire group based on nationality alone. Any refugee deemed in need of third country resettlement who meets the criteria of the US refugee program and the security protocols of the Department of Homeland Security should have access to our program irrespective of his or her nationality, ethnicity, or religion.
A vote on the amendment is expected tonight or tomorrow morning! Right now we are contacting Senators offices and gathering NGO signatures for a joint letter to urge them to vote against this discriminatory legislation. Add your voice now.
Lancet, a British public health journal, released yesterday a series of reports entitled Health in the Occupied Palestinian Territories which examine the health situation in the West Bank and Gaza. The five reports cover the status of health in the OPT, maternal and pediatric health, common diseases, health as a security issue, and a health-care system assessment for the occupied Palestinian territories and take into consideration issues such as security, the availability of resources, the various conflicts between Israel and Palestinian organizations, the blockade of Gaza, and the occupation of Israeli troops. The series was compiled as a joint effort by health scientists in the OPT, together with help from WHO, associated UN agencies, and academic institutions in the USA, UK, Norway, and France.
It makes claim that the security threats to the region originate, at least partially, in constraints imposed by Israel such as checkpoints and border closings which prevent access for patients and medics, create a shortage of medical supplies, and “affect every aspect of Palestinian life, such as the ability to travel, work, marry, study, worship, and be with family…[thereby] compromis[ing] the social determinants of health by increasing social exclusion, unemployment, and creating barriers to food, social support and transport.
The reports also discuss how the armed conflicts in the area have negative mental health impacts in children. Studies done even before the recent conflict illustrated the traumatic effects that witnessing brutally violent acts can have on children, resulting in “behavioral problems, fears, speech difficulties, anxiety, anger, sleeping difficulties, lack of concentration at school, and difficulties in completing homework. In order to solve the health crisis in the region, the series calls for a just political and economic solution, claiming that if international laws were respected and enforced, they could “protect Palestinians from insecurity
The full series can be found at www.thelancet.com(free registration is required).
Amnesty International works to protect human rights worldwide. We have more than 2.2 million supporters, activists and volunteers in over 150 countries, and are completely independent from government, corporate or national interests.
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Christoph Koettl is the Crisis Prevention and Response Campaigner at Amnesty International USA. In this position he coordinates AIUSA’s responses to international human rights crises and works on a project that utilizes geospatial technologies for documenting human rights violations and preventing conflict. See all »
