Newsgroup: it.cultura.militare
Titolo: B'Tselem calls on the army to cease using undercover units in combat   operation

B'Tselem calls on the army to cease using undercover units in combat  
operations, following the incident in Ramallah 
In the afternoon of Friday, 4 January 2007, a special unit of Israeli
military forces in civilian dress entered Ramallah's city center to arrest
Palestinians. At around 3:00 P.M., the forces surrounded the building in
which the wanted persons were hiding. When they saw that one of them,
Rabi'a Hamed, was running from the building, the undercover soldiers
opened fire, seriously wounding Hamed, who managed to escape. 
The gunfire exposed the identity of the undercover unit. Other Israeli
forces, including several Border Police jeeps, bulldozers, and two attack
helicopters were deployed to the city to rescue the undercover soldiers.
Dozens of Palestinians assembled in the area of the building in which the
undercover soldiers were located. They threw stones and petrol bombs at
the undercover soldiers and at the soldiers and Border Policemen who came
to rescue them. B'Tselem also received reports that armed Palestinians
opened fire. 
During the incident, which lasted about two hours, military bulldozers
made an escape route, destroying much property in the process, including
dozens of cars, merchants' stands, and wagons with goods for sale. The
attack helicopters provided cover with machine-gun fire. Military sources
contended that the helicopter fire was aimed at "open areas," but this
contention is questionable; the incident took place in the city center,
where there are no open areas, and several Palestinian civilians were
injured, and at least one person was killed, by the helicopter fire. The
gunfire by the helicopters and the ground forces also struck civilians who
were in the area by chance and were not taking part in the confrontation.
Journalists and medical personnel, too, were exposed to the gunfire:
paramedics informed B'Tselem that they treated and evacuated the wounded
while shots were flying over their heads. The journalist Fadi Hassan
'Aruri was shot and seriously wounded.
   The vegetable market in Ramallah after the incident on 4 Jan. 07.
Photo: 'Abbas Mumani, AFP 
 
Israeli gunfire killed four Palestinians. B'Tselem's investigation
revealed that none of the four was armed when shot and that three of them
did not take any part in the confrontation. The four fatalities were: 
Khalil al- Bairuti, 36, a tea and coffee vender, who was shot near the
al-Bira vegetable market; 
Yusef 'Adur, 24, a merchant in the open-air market, who was killed by
helicopter gunfire; 
Jamal Jweiles, 29, from East Jerusalem, who was in the area by chance when
the confrontation began, was shot and killed as he attempted to move his
car from the approaching military bulldozers; 
'Alaa Hamran, 16, who was shot in the head in the vegetable market, and
died from his wounds at a hospital in the city. Hamran participated in the
disturbances, but was not armed. 
About forty other Palestinians were injured and taken to hospital. Ten of
them suffered serious or critical injuries. Four Israeli soldiers suffered
light injuries. 
According to B'Tselem's investigation, twenty-two Palestinians were hit by
live ammunition, and two were hit by rubber bullets. The other injured
Palestinians suffered from gas inhalation, or were injured or trampled
when they tried to flee the confrontation. At least six of the
Palestinians injured were minors under eighteen years old, and at least
six were over forty. 
This incident is not unique. On the afternoon of 24 May 2006, for example,
undercover forces entered a crowded area in Ramallah. The forces were
exposed and attacked by people from the area and had to be rescued under
fire, causing dozens of casualties. Eighty-four persons were taken to
hospital: fifty had been hit by live ammunition, eight by rubber bullets,
four suffered from gas inhalation, three were injured by stun grenades,
and and regarding the remaining nineteen the cause of the injury is
unknown to B'Tselem . 
B'Tselem demands that the Israeli authorities take the following actions: 
1. Open a Military Police investigation into suspicions of harming
civilians in violation of the law 
In every case in which civilians are killed by military forces' gunfire, a
Military Police investigation should be opened to determine the
circumstances in which the soldiers opened fire. In this case, the
investigation is particularly vital, since the facts described above as
well as reports of intense, indiscriminate gunfire, raise suspicion that
the army and Border Police opened fire illegally, in breach of the
principles of discrimination and proportionality established in
international humanitarian law. The destruction of civilian property also
raises the suspicion that the forces caused disproportionate damage in
violation of international humanitarian law. 
Furthermore, the decision to employ combatants in disguise to arrest
wanted persons itself should be investigated. Such a decision increases
the risk of injury to innocent passersby, a risk that sadly was realized.
As mentioned, the action took place in the afternoon in the center of the
city. In these circumstances, it was to be expected that many civilians
would be in the area. Testimonies given to B'Tselem indicate that the
vegetable markets and streets near where the undercover unit was operating
were indeed full of people. None of these people knew of the secret
operation and all were ignorant of the potential danger entailed in being
in that place at that time. The planners of the operation anticipated the
possibility that the undercover soldiers would be exposed and that it
would be necessary to rescue them, and that a rescue effort would entail
gunfire. Indeed, a large rescue force arrived at the scene within minutes.
Anticipating all this, the planners also should have expected that many
civilians would be caught in the crossfire and injured, especially in
light of the similar incidents in the recent past in which civilians had
been injured. 
It is very doubtful that the military advantage anticipated from the
arrest operation justified the anticipated injury to civilians. The fact
that they decided to carry out the operation despite the harm it was
likely to cause, raises suspicion that the operation's planners gave
little consideration to the lives of the Palestinian civilians they
endangered, in flagrant breach of the demands of the principle of
proportionality. 
For these reasons, B'Tselem calls on the Judge Advocate General to order a
Military Police investigation to determine, first, whether in the given
circumstances the decision to carry out the arrests was legal, and second,
whether the security forces that took part in the incident harmed
civilians and civilian objects in violation of law. 
If illegal acts were indeed committed, B'Tselem demands that the persons
responsible be prosecuted. B'Tselem also demands that the state compensate
the Palestinian civilians injured by the security forces. The state must
also compensate those whose property was damaged or destroyed by the
bulldozers or by the gunfire by soldiers in the helicopters or on the
ground. 
2. Prohibit the use of undercover soldiers in combat actions 
Since the outbreak of the second intifada, the State of Israel has argued
that it is engaged in an armed conflict in the Occupied Territories , and
that its forces are therefore subject to the laws of warfare. As B'Tselem
has pointed out several times in the past, this approach is unacceptable,
because it imposes the laws of warfare even on routine policing actions.
As a result of its broad definition of the conflict, the army changed its
open-fire regulations, and soldiers are now allowed to use live ammunition
in many more situations than in the past. However, the laws of warfare,
also, impose restrictions on security forces, among them the prohibition
on perfidy, which forbids soldiers from feigning civilian status. This
prohibition is customary international law, which is binding on Israel .
Therefore, according to Israel 's approach – that the laws of warfare
apply to all actions of its forces in the Occupied Territories –
undercover operations, which breach the prohibition on perfidy, are
illegal. The fact that Palestinians do not distinguish themselves from the
civilian population does not release Israeli security forces from their
obligation to do so. Furthermore, the undercover soldiers and the
officials who dispatch them may also be guilty of war crimes, given that
injuring or killing a person while breaching the prohibition on perfidy is
a war crime under international criminal law. 
The prohibition on perfidy was established to protect civilians, and
follows directly from the basic rule of international humanitarian law
that requires the sides to make a clear distinction between civilians and
combatants and permits attacks only against military objects. Soldiers who
disguise themselves as civilians endanger civilians and thus frustrate the
objective of the principle of discrimination. One danger that the
prohibition seeks to prevent is that civilians would be marked for attack
because of the suspicion they are combatants in disguise. Another danger,
which unfortunately was realized in the action carried out by the
undercover soldiers in Ramallah, and in the similar cases that preceded
it, is that civilians will be caught unawares in the combat area because
they did not identify the disguised combatants among them. 
B'Tselem urges the Judge Advocate General to instruct the army to
immediately cease using undercover soldiers in any action that the army
defines as combat. 
-- 
Qultura politica di Tonibaruch su It.Politica.Internazionale :
Tonibaruch: "Chomsky... uno svitato filonazista"
http://groups.google.it/group/it.politica.internazionale/msg/4fcafdb551331642?dmode=source&hl=3Dit
 
Tonibaruch: "Hai per caso uno sfogo purulento tutto capillari e siero
presso il buco del culo e il cazzo di coniglio tutto raggrinzito e a
chiazze che ti macchia le mutande e la braghetta?"
http://groups.google.it/group/it.politica.internazionale/msg/1f324d4f5a1c4d94?dmode=source&hl=it
questo articolo e` stato inviato via web dal servizio gratuito 
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 on perfidy, which forbids soldiers from feigning civilian status.
Le leggi consuetudinarie di guerra vietano di uccidere o ferire con perfidia
singoli membri dell'esercito nemico. Se al momento di sparare i soldati
israeliani si sono identificati, non hanno violato tali leggi. Dato che
erano lì per prendere degli uomini vivi, è lecito supporre che ci abbiano
provato. Comunque nulla nel testo copiaincollato esclude tale eventualità.
Ovviamente esiste anche la definizione secondo la quale è perfidia il fatto
stesso di fingere di essere civili... definizione che si trova nei
Protocolli del 1977, non prima. Torniamo quindi al punto di partenza.
E' curioso osservare che B'Tselem sembrerebbe preferire delle modalità non
di guerra ma di operazioni di polizia. Eppure, se le autorità israeliane
dovessero agire secondo parametri normalmente accettati di operazioni di
polizia, allora l'impiego di agenti in borghese, sotto copertura, che si
identificano solo a voce all'ultimo momento sarebbe uno scenario
perfettamente plausibile e lecito.

 principio. 
cosi' come non si vede il perche' debba rispettare altre cose che altri
rispettano volenti o nolenti. Devono essere piu' uguali degli altri.
