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Israeli officers disciplined
flywallyfly
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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w ... 010851.ece
Two named Israeli officers "jeopardised" human life by firing white phosphorus shells at a compound run by the UN, according to a report by the Israeli Defence Force.
Brigadier General Eyal Eisenberg and Brigade Commander Colonel Ilan Malka were singled out by a Israeli special command investigation, which found the two men guilty of "exceeding their authority in a manner than jeopardised the lives of others".
It is the first time high-ranking military officers have been named as having been reprimanded for their actions during last year’s Gaza War.
The results of the investigation, which were provided to the UN over the weekend as a response to the Goldstone Report, found that the two men were responsible for firing shells at the UN headquarters where more than 700 Palestinians had taken shelter.
The officers have been handed a mild reprimand in the form of a "note" placed in their personal files noting their involvement in the incident, explained a senior Israeli official who called the punishment a "slap on the wrist".
Captain Barak Raz, an Israeli military spokesman, said: "We have been investigating everything that occurred during Operation Cast Lead. While these human rights organisations help us by bringing to attention certain claims, we investigate other incidents as well."
He said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had launched 150 investigations into its conduct during the 22-day war it waged in the Gaza Strip last winter, including 20 criminal investigations. "Several of these investigations, including field investigations are still open. We don’t know where it will lead."
Dozens of human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have accused Israel of violating the rules of warfare in Gaza. Israel’s use of white phosphorous has come under investigation.
Although white phosphorus is not mentioned in the reprimands of the two officers, the Israeli report mentions elsewhere that the munitions were in use.
The 155mm shells disperse hundreds of pieces of felt soaked in the incendiary chemical, which sticks to buildings and flesh and burns for many hours, causing appalling injuries.
The Israeli government report concedes that one UN relief and works agency employee and at least two Palestinian civilians taking shelter in the UN compound were hurt.
A high-ranking UN official in Gaza told The Times today that over half a dozen unexploded IDF shells were found in the UN compound, all with serial numbers identifying them as white phosphorus.
Two named Israeli officers "jeopardised" human life by firing white phosphorus shells at a compound run by the UN, according to a report by the Israeli Defence Force.
Brigadier General Eyal Eisenberg and Brigade Commander Colonel Ilan Malka were singled out by a Israeli special command investigation, which found the two men guilty of "exceeding their authority in a manner than jeopardised the lives of others".
It is the first time high-ranking military officers have been named as having been reprimanded for their actions during last year’s Gaza War.
The results of the investigation, which were provided to the UN over the weekend as a response to the Goldstone Report, found that the two men were responsible for firing shells at the UN headquarters where more than 700 Palestinians had taken shelter.
The officers have been handed a mild reprimand in the form of a "note" placed in their personal files noting their involvement in the incident, explained a senior Israeli official who called the punishment a "slap on the wrist".
Captain Barak Raz, an Israeli military spokesman, said: "We have been investigating everything that occurred during Operation Cast Lead. While these human rights organisations help us by bringing to attention certain claims, we investigate other incidents as well."
He said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had launched 150 investigations into its conduct during the 22-day war it waged in the Gaza Strip last winter, including 20 criminal investigations. "Several of these investigations, including field investigations are still open. We don’t know where it will lead."
Dozens of human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have accused Israel of violating the rules of warfare in Gaza. Israel’s use of white phosphorous has come under investigation.
Although white phosphorus is not mentioned in the reprimands of the two officers, the Israeli report mentions elsewhere that the munitions were in use.
The 155mm shells disperse hundreds of pieces of felt soaked in the incendiary chemical, which sticks to buildings and flesh and burns for many hours, causing appalling injuries.
The Israeli government report concedes that one UN relief and works agency employee and at least two Palestinian civilians taking shelter in the UN compound were hurt.
A high-ranking UN official in Gaza told The Times today that over half a dozen unexploded IDF shells were found in the UN compound, all with serial numbers identifying them as white phosphorus.
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:roll:
i also like that Alan Dershowitz calls Godlstone a traitor to his people :roll:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1146638.html
IDF denies disciplining top officers over white phosphorous use in Gaza war
The Israel Defense Forces on Monday denied that two of its senior officers had been summoned for disciplinary action after headquarters staff found that the men exceeded their authority in approving the use of phosphorus shells during last year's military campaign in the Gaza Strip, as the Israeli government wrote in a recent report.
In an official response provided to the United Nations over the weekend in response to last September's Goldstone Commission report, the government said that a brigadier general and another officer with the rank of colonel endangered human life during by firing white phosphorous munitions in the direction of a compound run by UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
The government finding aknowledges, at least in part, allegations by international organizations.
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But the IDF on Monday flatly denied that Division Commander Brig. Gen. Eyal Eisenberg and Givati Brigade Commander Col. Ilan Malka been subject to disciplinary action by GOC Southern Command Maj. Gen. Yoav Gallant. It did not deny that the munitions were in fact used during the war, however.
The incident in question occurred on January 15 of last year, two days before the end of Operation Cast Lead, in the southern Gaza City neighborhood of Tel al-Hawa, at a time when the Givati brigade and other Israeli forces were in the area.
In the course of engagement with a Hamas squad, which according to IDF intelligence possessed advanced anti-tank missiles, it was decided to use phosphorus smoke munitions to create cover that would make it harder for the Hamas fighters to see the IDF soldiers.
According to Israeli intelligence, the Hamas forces were stationed in a commanding location from which they could easily see the soldiers and the UNRWA compound that was located between the Israeli forces and the Hamas position.
The munitions disperse hundreds of pieces of felt impregnated with phosphorus and at least some of the pieces fell into the UNRWA compound, causing injury to an UNRWA employee there as well as to two Palestinian civilians who took cover at the location.
Many human rights organizations said that the IDF had illegally used the phosphorus munitions, which are shot from 155 mm. cannon, and that the material caused many burn injuries among the Palestinian population. The IDF responded that the munitions were permitted under international conventions and that similar shells are in use by other Western armies. The army also contended that the munitions were used in locations remote from heavily -populated areas.
With the conclusion of Operation Cast Lead, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi ordered the convening of five special investigative committees each headed by an officer with the rank of colonel to examine some of the serious allegations leveled against the army. One of the committees examined the use of phosphorus shells.
After three months, at the end of April of last year, then deputy chief of staff Maj. Gen. Dan Harel presented the committees' findings and with respect to phosphorus munitions said that they had found no instances in which shells were fired in violation of orders and in any event, they were fired in open areas.
Nonetheless, the report that the Israeli government gave to the United Nations last Friday explicitly states that the two senior officers were disciplined after one of the investigating committees noted among its findings that they approved the firing of phosphorus shells at Tel al-Hawa "exceeding their authority in a manner that jeopardized the lives of others."
The report to the UN also says that Ashkenazi recently ordered the convening of a sixth committee to examine additional allegations made against the IDF as well as an incident which one of the previous panels had been unable to thoroughly probe.
The investigative teams have been looking into only the most serious and prominent of the allegations made as a result of Cast Lead. This is in addition to military police probes that were carried out, or are still in progress, into about 150 alleged incidents of improper conduct on the part of soldiers involving civilians and Palestinian property during the Gaza campaign.
Some of the incidents were raised in operational IDF debriefings held after Cast Lead, but most came to light following complaints by human rights organizations, individual Palestinian civilians and press reports. Twelve incidents were raised for the first time in the Goldstone Commission report, which was commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council.
In the course of the IDF investigations, about 500 soldiers were questioned and nearly 100 Palestinian civilians were interviewed at the Erez checkpoint on the Israel-Gaza border. As a result of the IDF's investigations, 36 criminal investigation files have been opened so far, but criminal legal proceedings have so far been opened in only one case, in which two Givati brigade soldiers were convicted of stealing a Palestinian civilian's credit card.
Dershowitz: Goldstone is a traitor to the Jews
Prominent political commentator and pro-Israel campaigner Professor Alan Dershowitz slammed jurist Richard Goldstone, the architect of a UN report which accuses Israel of Gaza war crimes, calling him a traitor to the Jewish people, Army Radio reported yesterday. Dershowitz and Goldstone were colleagues and close friends for many years before the UN Gaza probe, but once Goldstone published his report the ties between the two were severed. (Haaretz Staff)
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
i know, they should take the moral highground and just shoot white phosphorus shells where several hundred civilians are taking shelter.... :roll:
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
not sure how that correlates to the IDF may or may not have disciplined 2 officers who ordered the white phosphorus shells used over a UN shelter of over 700 Palestinians which burned some and some UN workers....
isn't it illegal to use them in populated areas?
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
edit: just saw the other article - unbelievable that they admit they used phosphorous but no one was disciplined. Wow.
alas the question of legality means fuck all in these "righteous" wars...
How much can you tell me about the IDF without first looking anything up?
The hyperbole on here is apparently contagious.
Not really. This situation has been talked about at length for years on this board. Glad you experts are here to set everyone's opinion straight. :roll:
I won't try to argue that WP is safe, but I will say that its used largely for battlefield illumination. I am not surprised that few deaths have been directly linked to its use. If heavy civilian casualties was the goal, there would be "better" choices than WP rounds (better in quotes for obvious reasons). Cluster bombs are a much bigger problem, for instance, in that they litter unexploded munitions every which way for people to later pick up or step on. I think that DU and WP are "hot button topics" because these munitions sound like uber-nasty inhumane weapons, because of potential chemical effects and very low levels of ambient radiation. The truth is that cluster bombs are a much bigger threat, not to mention landmines (I don't think the latter are a big issue in Palestine, though).
From just what you have written lately i believe my knowledge is limited to them saving Haitians and abused puppies.
Sorry, but I take issue with the global notion of "IDF idiots killing at will". You don't see me referring to "Palestinian terrorist douchebags sowing the seeds of death". I have no qualms about people calling attention to specific incidents. The global language doesn't really capture the complexity of the issues, is all.
Yeah, WP is no big deal. Looks pretty light outside as well for illumination purposes but what do i know.
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&r ... CDMQsAQwBw
No opinion on cluster bombs, eh? I didn't say I wanted to bathe in the stuff.
I wasn't deflecting anything, I gave my view on WP. What else do you want me to say? I didn't realize that mentioning other forms of weaponry was not permitted. If you want to get really technical, we should probably only be talking about the disciplining of Israeli officers for using WP, the original thread topic. Not its random use on civilians.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/761781.html
IDF commander: We fired more than a million cluster bombs in Lebanon
"What we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster bombs," the head of an IDF rocket unit in Lebanon said regarding the use of cluster bombs and phosphorous shells during the war.
Is this what you are after? Or is that too much hyperbole?
Ok then, sorry to hurt your feelings Mr Sensitive. Cluster bombs bad, WP bad, killing civilians bad, using snipers on children bad, blah blah blah. Just put me down as saying the IDF is being used to commit war crimes for years. No whitewashing by you is going to change what I've read and watched over the last decade so good luck with others on here.
Yes, actually. I threw it out there for exactly that reason. And back during the war on Lebanon, I was on this very board, really bothered by what the IDF was doing at the time. What is everyone's problem on here? I point out that cluster bombs are a bigger issue than WP, and somehow this is a problem? And then you go on to prove my point for me, which I appreciate. I know I swore off cracking jokes in these threads, but you guys aren't making it easy.
I am not sure how you extrapolate from a link that shows the IDF terrorising civilians with cluster bombs to proving your point. The only thing the link proves is that the IDF is willing to use ANY type of bomb to terrorise civilians. The bigger issue is the IDFs attitude towards Arab civilians and not what type of bomb they use.
I personally could not give a rats ass if you crack jokes in these threads because it is only a reflection of ones personality to crack jokes in threads about loss of human lives.
And here we go, its personal attack time. In fairness, it took a bit longer than it usually does.
and much less severe than portrayed on the board? see how severe you think it is if it's fired up your ass.
Amnesty International delegates visiting the Gaza Strip found indisputable evidence of widespread use of white phosphorus in densely populated residential areas in Gaza City and in the north.
"Yesterday, we saw streets and alleyways littered with evidence of the use of white phosphorus, including still burning wedges and the remnants of the shells and canisters fired by the Israeli army," said Christopher Cobb-Smith, a weapons expert who is in Gaza as part of a four-person Amnesty International fact-finding team.
"White phosphorus is a weapon intended to provide a smokescreen for troop movements on the battlefield," said Cobb-Smith. "It is highly incendiary, air burst and its spread effect is such that it that should never be used on civilian areas”.
“Such extensive use of this weapon in Gaza's densely populated residential neighbourhoods is inherently indiscriminate. Its repeated use in this manner, despite evidence of its indiscriminate effects and its toll on civilians, is a war crime," said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty’s researcher on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
White phosphorus wedges are scattered all around residential buildings and many were still burning on Sunday, further endangering the residents and their property; streets and alleys are full of children playing, drawn to the detritus of war and often unaware of the danger.
"Artillery is an area weapon; not good for pinpoint targeting. The fact that these munitions, which are usually used as ground burst, were fired as air bursts increases the likely size of the danger area,” said Chris Cobb-Smith.
Each 155mm artillery shell bursts deploying 116 wedges impregnated with white phosphorus which ignite on contact with oxygen and can scatter, depending on the height at which it is burst (and wind conditions), over an area at least the size of a football pitch. In addition to the indiscriminate effect of air-bursting such a weapon, firing such shells as artillery exacerbates the likelihood that civilians will be affected.
Amnesty International delegates found both burning white phosphorous wedges and their carrier shells (which delivered them) in and around houses and buildings. Some of these heavy steel 155mm shells have caused extensive damage to residential properties.
Among the places worst affected by the use of white phosphorus was the UNRWA compound in Gaza City, where Israeli forces fired three white phosphorus shells on 15 January. The white phosphorus landed next to some fuel trucks and caused a large fire which destroyed tons of humanitarian aid. Prior to this strike the compound had already been hit an hour earlier and the Israeli authorities had been informed by UNRWA officials and had given assurance that no further strikes would be launched on the compound.
In another incident on the same day a white phosphorus shell landed in the al-Quds hospital in Gaza City also causing a fire which forced hospital staff to evacuate the patients.
White phosphorus landing on skin can burn deep through muscle and into the bone, continuing to burn unless deprived of oxygen.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/for-media/pre ... osphorus-a
Doctors in Gaza described today how they had struggled to treat dozens of patients with terrible and unusually deadly burns consistent with white phosphorus weapons, during Israel's three-week war in Gaza.
Nafiz Abu Shabaan, head of the burns unit at Shifa hospital and the most senior burns surgeon in Gaza, said 60 to 70 patients had died in his unit during the war from severe burns that were unlike any injury he had previously seen.
Patients with only relatively small burn injuries, which ought to be survivable, were dying unexpectedly.
His account, along with evidence from survivors, corroborates mounting evidence from groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International that the Israeli military fired phosphorus shells into populated areas of Gaza in direct violation of international humanitarian law. Amnesty said it believes Israel is guilty of a war crime.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/ja ... rus-israel
Landmines are actually a huge issue in the Golan heights. The area is literally littered with landmines set by the Syrians, who have refused to supply Israel with the maps of where these mines are laid out. As a result anyone driving through the Golan will constantly see fields cordoned off by barbed fire fences with signs warning of unexploded landmines. Because the IDF has done such a good job of marking the areas that might be dangerous no one (except the supremely stupid) are in danger, though every year a few grazing cattle that wander into the wrong field are blown up. Still, it's pretty dick of the Syrians, even without a peace treaty, to refuse to just give Israel the maps of where they left all their mines.
From what I've read I believe that the actual purpose is for battlefield concealment. In this particular instance the IDF has explained that Hamas gunman controlled a position on the far side of the UN compound in question, and that the WP was used to try to allow IDF soldiers to move towards the Hamas position.
Like I said, I don't really know a lot about these weapons. If the above is true then yeah, put me down as saying that this is really bad. The fact remains, however, that this fight should never have happened amongst a civilian population to begin with.