I thought the VA sniper was bad enough
 

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L16437725




16 Oct 2002 17:46
Rights group says Israel enforcing 'lethal curfew'

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By Gwen Ackerman

JERUSALEM, Oct 16 (Reuters) - An Israeli human rights group accused Israel's army on Wednesday of unjustifiably shooting to enforce curfews in the West Bank and said troops had killed 15 Palestinians, including 12 aged under 16, in such incidents.

The army, which has been trying to quell a two-year-old Palestinian uprising for independence, denied the accusations and said its troops had orders to open fire only when their lives are in danger.

The human rights organisation B'Tselem said the curfews, clamped on Palestinian-ruled cities in the West Bank following Palestinian suicide bombings, had damaged local education, welfare and health systems, and devastated the economy.

It saved its toughest criticism in a 35-page report called "Lethal Curfew" for incidents in which it said troops had shot at curfew violators even when their lives were not endangered.

"Sometimes the soldiers fire without warning. Fifteen children, 12 of them children under age 16, have been killed by soldiers enforcing the curfew. Dozens of others have been wounded," it said.

"None of those killed endangered the lives of soldiers. Violation of curfew alone is not a justifiable pretext for opening fire, and firing in such circumstances constitutes excessive use of force."

It said this showed "a shameful disregard for Palestinian lives and reflects a trigger-happy attitude among soldiers. It constitutes a flagrant breach of international law".

B'Tselem urged Israel to cease using curfews as "a permanent policy", stop using tear gas and gunfire to enforce curfews, and establish clear procedures for instituting and lifting curfews, and for ensuring residents are informed.

The report gave testimony from Ahmad Shohaneh, a resident of the West Bank city of Jenin whose eight-year-old daughter Sojud was killed when soldiers fired on Palestinians in a market.

He said that when soldiers started shooting, he rushed his children into his car and began driving off, not stopping even when he saw his son, Na'il, had been hit.

Once out of range, he stopped and picked his daughter up to move her away from his wounded son, only to find she was dead.

The army said it is investigating the incident, in which two other children, aged six and nine, were also killed.


ARMY DENIES TRIGGER-HAPPY SOLDIERS

The army says the curfews and blockades are needed to prevent further attacks on Israelis.

It says troops are not allowed to shoot in order to enforce curfews, but can fire when they deem their lives are in danger or when a dangerous suspect tries to elude arrest.

"The statement that soldiers are allegedly permitted to shoot anyone outside their home during the curfew is baseless," the army said in response to the B'Tselem report.

"IDF soldiers are instructed to act according to the ideals and values of the IDF, and the rules of international law..."

The latest curfews have kept residents of some West Bank cities indoors for much of the time in the past four months. They are the most extensive imposed since Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East war.

The United States has urged Israel to ease the hardships of Palestinian civilians. The army has relaxed restrictions in some West Bank cities, but in others has lifted the curfew only for several hours every few days.

the key word is permitted, which i doubt they are.

well it hasnt kept them from killing numerous civilians

this is the same army that uses civilians as human shields
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/20...113981336.html

Israel defends human shield tactics
By Ross Dunn
Jerusalem
August 16 2002


A Palestinian youth has died in a hail of bullets as Israeli soldiers used him as a human shield.

Israeli minister Ephraim Sneh, a former military commander, supported the Israeli practice of using Palestinian civilians in its raids on the ground that "we have to prevent a large terror attack, and it's clear which consideration wins in this situation".

The shooting occurred despite assurances by the Israeli army that it would end the controversial practice of enlisting residents to help soldiers carry out raids inside Palestinian civilian areas, a tactic condemned by human rights groups.

The soldiers were targeting a senior Hamas militant, Naser Jarrar, who the army said recruited suicide bombers and was planning to topple an Israel skyscraper. The Israeli army insists that Mr Jarrar was still working, despite losing both legs and an arm while trying to plant a bomb last year.

After discovering his hide-out in the West Bank town of Tubas, Israeli soldiers surrounded the building and told a neighbour to knock on the door and tell Mr Jarrar to come out.


The neighbour, Nidal Abu Muhsein, 19, did so, but was hit by gunfire from inside the house, the Israeli military said.

Israeli soldiers then opened fire before bringing in a bulldozer to demolish the house, killing Mr Jarrar.

The army refers to the use of civilians in such raids as the "neighbour procedure".

The Israeli human rights group B'tselem accused the army of using Mr Muhsein as a human shield.

The army said it was trying to prevent civilian deaths by warning any civilians who may have been in the house with Mr Jarrar to surrender.

But the Hebrew daily Ma'ariv said the practice was aimed at protecting the lives of Israeli soldiers, not Palestinians.

"Over the past two years, use of this procedure has increased, and innocent neighbours have been hurt on more than one occasion," the paper said.

Israeli human rights groups appealed to the Supreme Court to halt the practice, and were assured by the State Attorney that the army would no longer endanger innocent Palestinians. The groups are expected to lodge a new challenge.

In the Ma'ariv report, several senior Israeli officers said the practice was problematic and should be stopped.

stop saying 'them'

it's not them; it's ariel sharon's administration.

Scrutiny cant be placed on the military if they decide to carry out these kinds of operations? Thats the equivalent of saying Nazi soldiers shouldnt have been tried because they were just following orders

excuse me? scrutiny is being played on them. israeli human rights groups are speaking out about it. that's my whole fucking point. you say 'them' as if it's the whole nation that's behind it when it's not, it's just one administration of a psycho prime minister.

secondly, i don't think their intentions are wholly evil. i mean it's only a problem because the people living in the house started shooting. i mean it's wrong to put civilians in danger but you can also say they probably would be putting civilians in danger just by knocking on someone's door and start shooting back. if there really were other people living in the house then SOME innocent civilian would have gotten killed either way. i'm not saying it's right but maybe it is less dangerous in the long run.

Yeah, but the Palestinians arent illegally expanding the boundaries of their country or demolishing Israeli houses so that settlers can live there because of the basic belief that they are the "Chosen People".

yeah youre right, if only the palestinians who are being used as human shields could see it that way :rolleyes:

umm that sentence makes no sense in the context of what i was just saying.

yes it does.

"secondly, i don't think their intentions are wholly evil. i mean it's only a problem because the people living in the house started shooting. i mean it's wrong to put civilians in danger but you can also say they probably would be putting civilians in danger just by knocking on someone's door and start shooting back. if there really were other people living in the house then SOME innocent civilian would have gotten killed either way. i'm not saying it's right but maybe it is less dangerous in the long run," said suze.

you implied its better in the long run to use human shields. Since some innocent people would get killed either way, you say, its better to have a palestinian taking bullets for israeli soldiers. So i say again, yeah youre right, if only the palestinians who are being used as human shields could see it that way :rolleyes:

and when did i ever state i meant the whole israeli nation when i said "them?" I cant see where i said it in this thread but im pretty sure youll come up with something.

This year:

250 Palestinian children killed this year by Israeli forces.
72 Israeli children killed by Palestinian terrorists.

When Palestinian terrorists indiscriminantly kill LESS children than the IDF you have to wonder.

BECAUSE THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY HAS TRICKED PARENTS INTO BELIEVING THAT IT'S NECESSARY TO SHOVE CHILDREN OUT IN FRONT OF TANKS, JUST BECAUSE THEY KNOW IT MAKES ISRAEL LOOK BAD

http://hem.fyristorg.com/gavia/israe..._children.html

i know you can argue about what percentage of the children were killed in their own homes and what were killed from standing in front of gunfire, but you can't deny that child martyrdom is at least looked at as an honourable thing, at least by the media.

It is a great achievement when you trick Palestinian parents into putting children in harms way, especially when that harm is a bomb dropped from an Israeli F16.

so what? what do you expect from a war?

The fact is that the IDF have a legitimate (for their own peace of mind) excuse for killing children while Palestinian terrorists are happy to kill ANY Israeli and still kill fewer children.

is that what theyre teaching in saturday school these days? Please dont tell me you actually believe this. tell me this is sarcasm in its utter most hyperbolic form. I can understand some parents being proud of their kids resisting a regime that humiliates them every chance it gets, but they dont send them out to make Isreal "look bad"

no, the palestinian authority fills their heads with ideas that it's *good* to be a child martyr, as i said above. and yes, the palestinian authority does it to make israel look bad. thi sisn't 'something they teach us in saturday school' actually jews don't have school on the sabbath. this is a known fact. i mean, you talk about why so many palestinian children are killed, well WHY are there so many palestinian children on the front lines?

talk about human shields. jesus fucking christ. yasser arafat is so evil it isn't fucking funny yet you continue to act like he actually wants peace or cares about what's good for his people. well he doesn't. the media and the government feed the people lies about israel and tell them that if their children are murdered by israelis then they'll go to heaven. and saddam hussein gives thousands of dollars to the families of suicide bombers. terrorism isn't 'revolutionary', it's a pawn of the elite.

she's an out-and-out racist

and a stupid one at that

um you're retarded. i'm not a racist considering palestinians and israelis are almost genetically identical. it's not a race matter. i'm sure there are some racist israelis who like to think palestinians are different but they're not. it's a land matter, a national defense matter, and a matter of a horrible autocratic leader promoting warfare. i don't like when people attack israeli soldiers for murdering children without even asking what the fuck these children are doing standing in front of gunfire in the first place. it's not a one-way street. and i know you don't want to believe it but it's true. they put children in front on purpose. you can't deny this because it's a fact.

1. How is a horrible autocratic leader promoting welfare worse than a horrible democratic leader promoting the same thing? War is war. This statement makes even less sense in the light that it's well known you can't stand Sharon.

2. Of course it's not a one-way street, but that doesn't justify Israeli actions in any way, shape, or form in the same way that it doesn't justify Palestinian actions.

Well to be honest, the 'front lines' tend to be the towns and villages where they live.

i never said i was an arafat supporter. and what lies are they feeding them that would inspire them to go out on the street. they dont need any propaganda for that. all they need to look at are the tanks rolling down their streets, see their homes being totally demolished to make way for Israeli settlements, or know that theyre family member or their neighbor has been killed by the Israeli military. and what do you expect people to do when theyre left with no other option other then blow themselves up in the middle of a crowd. they can't defend themselves when their land is being swept from under their feet. they have no weapons to defend itself from the only country in the world that is still annexing inhabited land beyond its boundaries. Im not saying suicide bombing is right, but its what you should expect from people with no other option. and who's to blame for putting Palestinians in the condition theyre in and leaving them with no other option?

siraj it's not a one-sided issue. you can't say 'what else are they supposed to do?' because i could say the exact same thing for the israeli army. why do you expect the israeli army to do nothing whatsoever to stop bombings? what the hell? it's faulty logic. you can't say palestinians are excused because they're acting out of desperation as if the israeli government isn't just as fucking desperate. it's not a superpower that's just annexing lands for imperial purposes. i do NOT approve of israeli settlements in west b ank and gaza territory, i think that's just going to make the creation of a palestinian state even harder, but i also don't approve of the one-sided view that israel is acting in a vaccuum, like there's no historical relevance as to why they're imposing curfews or occupying territory or shooting people. this isn't a one-sided issue and it's not a vaccuum. it's an on-going issue that's been going on for 54 years and really much longer than that, and you can't say the palestinians are 'desperate' so that can excuse their actions. because everyone is desperate in that region. desperation doesn't fucking matter. it's no excuse. and it's arafat's fucking problem for not doing more to show 'his people' that violence is [obviously] not the fucking solution.

but i'm not talking about the democratic leader. ariel sharon is pretty much fucking up everything (of course he's not completely or even mostly doing this by himself) but that doesn't mean the system of parliamentary democracy is fucked or there's no hope for a future israeli prime minister who will handle situations better. arafat more or less IS the palestinian government. and he and his officials have almost total control over the palestinian media, which is really tnatamount to brainwashing. ariel sharon isn't a symbol of the israeli government like arafat is a symbol of the palestinian government. just a couple years ago there was barak. and before him netanyahu. and before him mister rabin. and if only shimon peres had gotten elected instead of netanyahu, i have a strong feeling things would be different today. the big problem with sharon or really with arafat is the two of them are just really doing a pucker job of making everyoneo just really pissed off. i really doubt that with the way things are a less-extreme prime minister will be elected anytime soon (although i'd have to do more research into israeli reactions to sharon). anyways. that's all. http://www.phrmg.org/monitor2001/nov2001-3.htm
http://www.operationsick.com/reports...mediawatch.htm

Quote:

2. Of course it's not a one-way street, but that doesn't justify Israeli actions in any way, shape, or form in the same way that it doesn't justify Palestinian actions.

i'm not trying to justify israeli actions, i'm just trying to put them into context. it's so ridiculous that you people run out for the palestinian cause going 'but they are so miserable!' or whatever, of course they're miserable i don't disagree with that, yet you devote no thought whatsoever into exactly why israel is occupying the west bank in the first place, or why it's imposing these ridiculous curfews, or why bad things happen. you can't sit around laying blame, on EITHER side. i've just been oh these wonderful co-existence websites. lemme find one...http://www.jppi.org/links.html umm that was irrelevant i guess but i just thought it does give you some hope. i'm going to do research now on israeli public opinion in regards to sharon.

i expect the israeli govt to halt the oppression of the palestinian people. stop the settlements. stop the demolotion of their homes. stop putting up road blocks so palestinians can get to their jobs, stop storming in houses overturning furniture, urinating on their carpets, and leaving while "looking for terrorists". stop fucking shooting at kids and ambulances that try to get to the wounded kids that are being shot. stop singling out every palestinian you see at checkpoints. stop giving privelages to people who have ID cards that show theyre jewish. stop ignoring every possible UN resolution and international law. The balance of power in the region is in overwhelming favor for the Israeli govt. they have the power to do all these things thus they have the responsibility to do so. they are in control. I never said suicide bombers are excused for killing innocent people, but the rest of the palestinian nation shouldnt have to suffer because of a product of Israeli oppression. the israeli people shouldnt have to die while loading buses or eating at cafes because their govt treats the people who a few miles away like shit.

im curious to hear your explanation as to why Israel is occupying Palestinian land. Ive seen interviews with Jewish settlers saying it was their god given right to live in the occupied territories being the "chosen people" and the most lenient of them said Palestinians could live near by if they behaved.

oh also, just when you compare the pure numbers of people who are killed (this is going to get into arguments over justification for being a combatant but oh well) i just thought these statistics were interesting

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2002/7/prweb43109.php