Newsgroup: it.cultura.militare
Titolo: Israeli Soldiers use civilians as Human Shields in Beit Hanun

Israeli Soldiers use civilians as Human Shields in Beit Hanun 
B'Tselem's initial investigation indicates that, during an incursion by
Israeli forces into Beit Hanun, in the northern Gaza Strip, on 17 July
2006, soldiers seized control of two buildings in the town and used
residents as human shield. 
After seizing control of the buildings, the soldiers held six residents,
two of them minors, on the staircases of the two buildings, at the
entrance to rooms in which the soldiers positioned themselves, for some
twelve hours. During this time, there were intense exchanges of gunfire
between the soldiers and armed Palestinians. The soldiers also demanded
that one of the occupants walk in front of them during a search of all the
apartments in one of the buildings, after which they released her. 
International humanitarian law forbids using civilians as human shields by
placing them next to soldiers or next to military facilities, with the
intention of gaining immunity from attack, or by forcing the civilians to
carry out dangerous military assignments. 
B'Tselem has demanded that the Judge Advocate General immediately order a
Military Police investigation into the matter and prosecute the soldiers
responsible for the action. 
Chronology of the Events 
In the IDF's Operation Summer Rains in the Gaza Strip following the
abduction of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, engineer, artillery, and infantry forces
made an incursion into Beit Hanun, a town of some 32,000 people in the
northern Gaza Strip, early in the morning on 17 July. According to the IDF
Spokesperson, during the incursion, "IDF struck approximately twenty armed
terrorists." The announcement added that, "Forces also carried out
engineering work to harm terror organizations' infrastructure and hamper
their activity, and arrested a number of wanted menů During searches,
forces discovered three Kalashnikov rifles, a carbine, a pistol, and
ammunition." 
Around 6:00 A.M., troops in armored personnel carriers and bulldozers
drove up to two adjacent four-story buildings in the middle of the town,
near the a-Nasser mosque. The bulldozers destroyed the concrete wall
around each building and then destroyed one of the external walls on the
ground floor of each of the buildings. The extended Kafarneh family lives
on the bottom three floors of one of the buildings. On the fourth floor
are the offices of the Ramatan Palestinian News Agency. The 'Ali family
lives in the other building. 
Part of the force, twelve soldiers in the estimate of one of the
witnesses, burst into the Kafarneh building through the area where the
wall was destroyed, firing stun grenades as they entered. At the time,
there were 25 people in the building, including 11 children. Some of those
present were from the 'Ali family who left the adjacent building when the
military entered Beit Hanun. The soldiers called all the residents to
gather in the living room on the ground floor, and then searched them.
Threatening the occupants with his weapon, one of the soldiers ordered
'Aza Kafarneh, a 43-year old woman, to accompany him to search each of the
floors in the building and to open the doors of each of the rooms. At the
end of the search, the soldiers ordered all the occupants, except for
three, to leave the building. As they left, there was a heavy exchange of
gunfire between IDF soldiers and Palestinians. In her testimony to
B'Tselem, 'Aza Kafarneh related that, in light of the situation, she
requested the soldier to let them remain in the building, but the soldiers
refused. "We had to lay flat on the ground and crawl to the neighbor's
house..." 
The three who were kept in the building were two of her sons, Hazem, 14,
and Qusay, 16, and her nephew, Khaled, 23. The three were taken to the
staircase, at the entrance to the third-floor apartment, where the
soldiers were located. The three sat there until around 8:00 P.M, about 45
minutes before the soldiers left the building. During this time, soldiers
inside and outside the building were engaged in exchanges of gunfire with
armed Palestinians. The staircase was not in the direct line of gunfire.
Just before the end of the incident, the soldiers ordered the three to go
downstairs, in front of them, to the entrance of the building. 
At the same time (around 6:00 AM), other members of the military force had
seized control of the building in which the 'Ali family lives. The only
people in the building were the mother, 'Ayesha, 60, and her three sons,
Hazem, 29, Tareq, 25, and 'Emad, 41. 'Ayesha 'Ali was taken into an
interior room on the ground floor, where she stayed with her hands tied
until the end of the events. 
The soldiers ordered her three sons to undress and then searched them. The
soldiers then cuffed their hands behind their back and blindfolded them.
According to the testimony of Hazem, the soldiers tightened the cuffs
intentionally so as to hurt them. One of the soldiers kicked him in the
chest after he complained about the pain. However, when his hands began to
swell and bleed from the cuffs, another soldier put a new pair of cuffs on
his hands. 
'Emad, who serves in the Palestinian police force, handed over his
personal weapon at the beginning of the events, in response to the
soldiers' demand. Another member of the family who also serves in a
Palestinian police unit was not present at the time. Soldiers searched for
his weapon, but they did not find it. During the search, the soldiers
broke a lot of the family's furniture and caused great destruction in some
of the apartments. 
Following the search, one of the soldiers took Hazem's cell phone and
called four persons whose numbers were in the phone's memory. The soldier
told each of them: "If you want Hazem, Tareq, and 'Emad released, bring
your weapons." According to Hazem's testimony, the four persons work with
him at Ramatan and were selected at random; none of them have any weapons. 
Around 8:00 A.M., the three men were taken to the staircase next to the
third-floor apartment, where the soldiers were gathered. The three
remained on the stairs, their hands cuffed behind their back and their
eyes covered, until 8:45 P.M., when the soldiers left the building. At a
certain point, one of the brothers, Tareq, moved a bit, and a soldier hit
him in the chest and threatened to kill him. While they sat there, an
intense exchange of gunfire took place between soldiers in the building
and armed Palestinians outside. In contrast to the situation in the other
building, many bullets entered the staircase area via the window and
struck the wall, above the heads of the three occupants. One of the
brothers, 'Emad, was taken by the soldiers at the end of the incident and
remains in Israeli detention. 
During the events, 'Aza Kafarneh was in contact with B'Tselem and asked
the organization to help attain the release of her family members who were
being held by the soldiers. A B'Tselem staff member, Najib Abu Rokaya,
called the IDF's District Coordination Office in the Gaza Strip and warned
them about the incident. The soldier on the other end of the phone
referred Abu Rokaya to the DCO's legal advisor, Captain Haim Sharbit.
After Abu Rokaya spoke with him, Sharbit said that he could do nothing
about the matter because "we are not familiar with the incident." 
Legal Background 
The testimonies taken by B'Tselem indicate that the Israeli soldiers who
took over the buildings used the occupants as human shields. They placed
civilians on the staircase, next to the rooms where the soldiers were
located, with the intention of deterring the armed Palestinians from
attacking the building and/or so that the civilians would be located
between the soldiers and the armed Palestinians, should the latter manage
to penetrate the building and try to shoot them. The soldiers used one of
the occupants to open the doors of the apartments, apparently out of fear
that other persons were hiding there and would open fire when the door was
opened. 
International humanitarian law, which states the rules applying in armed
conflicts, requires the sides to distinguish between combatants and
civilians, and to protect the lives and dignity of civilians. The Fourth
Geneva Convention, in Article 27, states that civilians who find
themselves in the hands of one of the parties are "entitled, in all
circumstances, to respectů They shall at all times be humanely treated,
and shall be protected especially against all acts of violence or threats
thereofů" 
Article 28 of the Convention expressly prohibits the use of civilians as
human shields by placing them alongside soldiers or military facilities,
with the hope of attaining immunity from attack. The official commentary
of the Convention refers to this practice, which was common in the Second
World War as "cruel and barbaric." The Convention, in Articles 31 and 51,
also prohibits the use of physical or moral coercion on civilians or
forcing them to carry out military tasks. 
Despite these prohibitions, for a long period of time following the
outbreak of the second intifada, particularly during Operation Defensive
Shield, in April 2002, the IDF systematically used Palestinian civilians
as human shields, forcing them to carry out military actions which
threatened their lives. It was not until a High Court petition was filed
by Israeli human rights organizations opposing such action, in May 2002,
that the IDF issued a general order prohibiting the use of Palestinians as
"a means of 'human shield' against gunfire or attacks by the Palestinian
side.'" Following this order, the use of this practice declined sharply.
However, according to IDF interpretation, assistance by Palestinians, with
their consent, in warning a wanted person hiding in a certain location is
not deemed use of a human shield. However, this practice was also outlawed
following the ruling of the Israeli High Court of Justice that this
practice is inconsistent with the Fourth Geneva Convention. 
Clearly, then, the IDF's treatment of the Palestinian occupants in the two
Beit Hanun buildings flagrantly breached fundamental rules of
international humanitarian law, as well as IDF regulations. B'Tselem wrote
to the military's Judge Advocate General and demanded that he immediately
order a Military Police investigation regarding this incident, and that he
prosecute all those responsible for these illegal acts. 
da
http://www.btselem.org/english/Human_Shields/20060720_Human_Shields_in_Beit_Hanun.asp
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balle !! 

 balle !!
quelle che non hai mai avuto.


Jack Ryan ha scritto:

non si sa se sono balle o no. Infatti, la richiesta e' di investigare il 
caso.
Ho avuto occasione di visitare il sito da cui e' preso anche questo post 
in una occasione precedente e devo dire che, dati ovviamente per assunti 
gli scopi dell'associazione in questione, e' cmq equilibrato e non 
generalizza in maniera negativa sulle FA israeliane.
Individua invece casi dubbi di singole possibili violazioni e li porta 
all'attenzione.
Cosa che mi pare cmq doverosa (in italia credo che una similare 
associazione, se esistesse, cercherebbe solo di fare terra bruciata di 
tutto...)
Iso

 caso.
in una democrazia non č possibile che succeda una cosa del genere davanti 
agli occhi di tutti senza che ne scoppi uno scandalo. Poi gli scudi umani 
sono una minaccia ad uso mediatico per spaventare il nemico, per cui 
dovrebbe essere pubblicizzata, se no, non avrebbe senso.