U.N. report condemns Israel for Gaza operation. Israeli troops used 11year old boy as human shield in Gaza. Will The International Criminal Court Act?

A U.N. report on Israel's recent attacks on Gaza was published on March 23, 2009. It was highly critical of Israel citing many examples and calling the response by Israel "disproportionate" and using words like "new crime against humanity".

What is the civilized western world going to choose to do? Is it going to ignore this report by the UN? Or is it going to act upon it?

And what about President Obama and his advisers? Will they act to show that the CHANGE that came to America, and which was celebrated by people all over the world, also stands for justice for all?

Or will the western world squander another opportunity to dispel a perception believed by many around the world that western justice is the privilege of the special few and those with good connections to Washington - thus validating the finger pointing by the extremists as well as the moderates alike the world over at the west's double standards and the weakness in its moral arguments.

CNN.com , Aljazeera.net, as well as, The Daily Star amongst many others have reported on this UN report on March 24 2009.

The real questions are:

-Will the UN dare discuss sanctions?

-Will the International Criminal Court act? -To indict, or at least, to point the fingers of accusations at any Israeli on these crimes?

-Or is the International Criminal Court going to continue in its politically biased and motivated appearances?

Aljazeera.net writes:

- A senior UN official has suggested that Israel should be held accountable for a "new crime against humanity" during its January assault on the Gaza strip.

Richard Falk, the UN's special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, said Israel had confined Palestinian civilians to the combat zone in Gaza, a unique move which should be outlawed.

"Such a war policy should be treated as a distinct and new crime against humanity, and should be formally recognised as such, and explicitly prohibited," Falk said in a report to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday.


CNN.com Writes:

- Israeli soldiers routinely and intentionally put children in harm's way during their 22-day offensive against the Palestinians in Gaza, according to a United Nations report made public Monday.

The report said a working group had documented and verified reports of violations "too numerous to list."

For example, on January 15, in a town southwest of Gaza City, Israel Defense Forces soldiers ordered an 11-year-old boy to open Palestinians' packages, presumably so that the soldiers would not be hurt if they turned out to contain explosives, the 43-page report said.

They then forced the boy to walk in front of them in the town, it said. When the soldiers came under fire, "the boy remained in front of the group," the report said.

It said the boy was later released.

Also cited were "credible reports" that accused Hamas, the militant Palestinian group that runs Gaza, of using human shields and placing civilians at risk.

But it singled out the Israelis for more sweeping criticism.

The Daily Star writes:

-Israeli troops used an 11-year-old Palestinian boy as a human shield during its war in the Gaza Strip, UN human rights experts said on Monday. The Israeli military ordered the boy to walk in front of soldiers being fired on in the Gaza neighborhood of Tel al-Hawa and enter buildings before them, said the UN secretary general's envoy for protecting children in armed conflict.

The boy was also told to open the bags of Palestinians - presumably to protect the soldiers from possible explosives - before being released at the entrance to a hospital, Radhika Coomaraswamy said.

She said the January 15 incident, which occurred after Israeli tanks had rolled into the neighborhood and during "intense operations," was a violation of Israeli and international law.

It was included in a 43-page report published Monday, and was just one of many verified human-rights atrocities during the three-week war between Israel and Hamas that ended January 18, she said.

My question remains::

-Will the UN dare discuss sanctions?

-Will the International Criminal Court act? -To indict, or at least, to point the fingers of accusations at any Israeli on these crimes?

-Or is the International Criminal Court going to continue in its politically biased and motivated appearances?

CNN.com added:

A spokesman for the Israeli prime minister called the report another example of the "one-sided and unfair" attitude of the U.N. Human Rights Council, which requested it.

The report cited two alleged incidents from January 3. In one, it said, after a tank round struck near a house, a father and his two sons -- both younger than 11 -- emerged to look at the damage.

"As they exited their home, IDF soldiers shot and killed them (at the entrance to their house), with the daughter witnessing," the report said.

In the second, it said, "Israeli soldiers entered a family house in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City. Standing at the doorstep, they asked the male head of the household to come out and shot him dead, without warning, while he was holding his ID, hands raised up in the air, and then started to fire indiscriminately and without warning into the room where the rest of the family was huddled together.

"The eldest son was shouting in vain the word 'Children' in Hebrew to warn the soldiers. The shooting did not stop until everyone was lying on the floor. The mother and four of the brothers, aged 2-12 years, had been wounded, one of them, aged 4, fatally."

The alleged instances occurred during Operation Cast Lead, which was launched December 27 to halt rocket attacks into southern Israel from Gaza and ended January 17 with a cease-fire.

The U.N. report called the response by Israel disproportionate.

Of the 1,453 people estimated killed in the conflict, 1,440 were Palestinian, including 431 children and 114 women, the report said.

The 13 Israelis killed included three civilians and six soldiers killed by Hamas, and four soldiers killed by friendly fire, it said.

The report said the Israeli operation resulted in "a dramatic deterioration of the living conditions of the civilian population."

It cited "targeted and indiscriminate" attacks on hospitals and clinics, water and sewage treatment facilities, government buildings, utilities and farming and said the offensive "intensified the already catastrophic humanitarian situation of the Palestinian people."

It said Israeli strikes damaged more than 200 schools and left more than 70,000 people homeless.

"There are strong and credible reports of war crimes and other violations of international norms," it said, adding that many observers have said war crimes investigations should be undertaken.

"The alternative is de facto impunity," it said.

It called for the end of Israel's blockade of Gaza and the free passage into the territory of food, medicine, fuel and construction supplies.

CNN.com added:

The Israeli military did accept criticism Monday on another matter -- the practice of some Israeli soldiers of wearing T-shirts that appear to condone acts of violence against Palestinians.

The Israeli daily Haaretz newspaper reported that Israeli soldiers who had finished basic training ordered the shirts, one of which showed a pregnant Arab in the crosshairs of a gun sight with a caption reading "1 Shot 2 Kills." Another showing a small child in a gun's sight was captioned, "The smaller they are, the harder it is."

"The examples presented by The Haaretz reporter are not in accordance with IDF values and are simply tasteless," the Israeli military said in a written statement. "This type of humor is unbecoming and should be condemned."

Israeli soldiers said last week that Palestinian civilians were killed and Palestinian property intentionally destroyed during Israel's military campaign in Gaza, according to Haaretz.

The IDF has said it is investigating the claims, but its top general expressed skepticism Monday.

"I don't believe that soldiers serving in the IDF hurt civilians in cold blood, but we shall wait for the results of the investigation," Lt. Gen. Ashkenazi, the chief of staff, said in a speech.

"I tell you that this is a moral and ideological army."

He blamed Hamas for choosing "to fight in heavily populated areas.

"It (was) a complex atmosphere that includes civilians and we took every measure possible to reduce harm of the innocent," he said, according to an IDF statement.


The Daily Star added:

Coomaraswamy accused Israeli soldiers of shooting Palestinian children, bulldozing a home with a woman and child still inside, and shelling a building they had ordered civilians into a day earlier.

"Violations were reported on a daily basis, too numerous to list," said Coomaraswamy, who visited Gaza and Israel for five days in February.

The envoy also said there were allegations Hamas used human shields or fired from heavily populated areas, and that UN officials are investigating.

Israel criticized the report as "unable or perhaps unwilling" to address rocket attacks from Gaza or the threat of terrorism, citing Saturday's failed attempt to detonate a car bomb in a Haifa mall parking lot as the most recent manifestation. But none of the evidence that has been made public links the attempted Haifa attack to any groups in Gaza.

"The report claims to examine Israel's actions while it willfully ignores and downplays the terrorist and other threats we face," Ambassador Aharon Leshno Yaar told the 47-nation Human Rights Council.

Leshno Yaar said "terrorists" use women and children as human shields when they launch attacks from schools, homes, hospitals and mosques. He did not address the report's allegation about the boy, but an army spokesman rejected the claim.

"We are an army to which morals and high ethical standards are paramount," said Captain Elie Isaacson.

Coomaraswamy said her list of Israeli violations constituted "just a few examples of the hundreds of incidents that have been documented and verified" by UN officials who were in the territory.

She was the only one of the nine UN experts who compiled the report allowed into Gaza following the war.

Also on Monday, Richard Falk, a United Nations expert on the Palestinian territories, said in a report that there was "reason" to conclude that Israel's military operation in the Gaza Strip was a war crime.

Richard Falk said in order to determine whether the war was legal, it was necessary to assess if the Israeli forces could differentiate between civilian and military targets in Gaza.

"If it is not possible to do so, then launching the attacks is inherently unlawful, and would seem to constitute a war crime of the greatest magnitude under international law," Falk wrote in the report to be presented to the UN Human Rights Council.

"On the basis of the preliminary evidence available, there is reason to reach this conclusion," he added, pointing out that attacks were targeted at densely populated areas.

Furthermore, as the borders of Gaza were sealed, civilians were unable to flee from the attacks, Falk noted.

Falk had focused his report on the legal issues arising from the war, as he had been unable to enter Gaza to assess the human-rights situation on the ground.

He attempted a mission in December, but was detained by the Israelis in a facility close to Ben Gurion airport before being expelled a day after.

"Such a refusal to cooperate with a UN representative, not to mention the somewhat humiliating treatment accorded has set an unfortunate precedent with respect to the treatment of a representative of the UN Human Rights Council, and more generally of the UN itself," Falk wrote.

Falk has been highly critical of Israel's policies against the Palestinians, saying in early December that they amounted to a crime against humanity. - Agencies, with The Daily Star


My questions still remain and which no one seems to be asking:

-Will the UN dare discuss sanctions?

-Will the International Criminal Court act? -To indict, or at least, to point the fingers of accusations at any Israeli on these crimes?

-Or is the International Criminal Court going to continue in its politically biased and motivated appearances?