Action Palestine

By The Alternative Information Center (AIC)

To read the article on the AIC website, click here.

According to the Jerusalem online newspaper Mynet, Hebrew University’s Student Union Chairperson, Ofer Raviv, recently recommended that a Separation Wall between the university’s Mount Scopus campus and the nearby Palestinian village of Issawiya be constructed.

Hebrew University officials suggested that such a wall could be financed by the parking meters located on Mount Scopus and the Jerusalem Municipality has agreed to examine this possibility. If implemented, this would be just one more action in Hebrew University’s long tradition of documented institutional participation in the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, this time at the instigation of its official student body.

In a letter to the youth and student led Hitorerut (Awakening) party in the Jerusalem Municipality, Union Chairperson Ofer Raviv writes that “In conversations with the (Hebrew) University Department of Security and students, the idea came up of a circumferential wall between the campus and Issawiya.” Ostensibly as a means for reducing thefts on campus, the wall would serve as one more level of constriction and separation that is already the reality for the Issawiya villagers. Security arguments have long been used by Israel as a means to intensify the occupation and confiscation of Palestinian land.

For more than the past 20 years, growth in Issawiya has been severely restricted by Israeli municipal policy, land confiscation and construction. The Separation Wall borders the village to its north, the French Hill settlement to its northwest, an Israeli military radio base to its south, a military detention center to its east, and the Hebrew University campus surrounding it from its southern tip and covering its entire western border. Moreover, large tracts of land have been expropriated from the village by the Israeli government in order to build the E-1 settlement bloc, which is intended to connect Jerusalem with the larger settlement of Ma’ale Adumim to the village’s east.

Responding to an AIC inquiry, the Jerusalem Municipality stated that last week a meeting was conducted between representatives of the students, Hebrew University and the Jerusalem Municipality, in which measures were agreed upon concerning participation of each body to promote campus security.

At the time of publication, there was no response from a Hebrew University spokesperson to AIC inquiries in this matter.

The Alternative Information Center (AIC) calls on anti-occupation Palestinian, Israeli and international activists to tell Hebrew University and its Student Union that this proposal is unethical and unacceptable. We particularly call on student unions and associations to denounce the suggestion by an official student union to actively increase the Israeli occupation regime by calling for the construction of another wall of separation and constriction around the Palestinian village of Issawiya.

For an AIC video on the situation in Issawiya, click here.

For more on land and housing rights in Issawiya, click here.

March 25, 2009
(Jerusalem) – Israel’s repeated firing of white phosphorus shells over densely populated areas of Gaza during its recent military campaign was indiscriminate and is evidence of war crimes, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

The 71-page report, “Rain of Fire: Israel’s Unlawful Use of White Phosphorus in Gaza,” provides witness accounts of the devastating effects that white phosphorus munitions had on civilians and civilian property in Gaza. Human Rights Watch researchers in Gaza immediately after hostilities ended found spent shells, canister liners, and dozens of burnt felt wedges containing white phosphorus on city streets, apartment roofs, residential courtyards, and at a United Nations school. The report also presents ballistics evidence, photographs, and satellite imagery, as well as documents from the Israeli military and government.

Militaries use white phosphorus primarily to obscure their operations on the ground by creating thick smoke. It can also be used as an incendiary weapon.

“In Gaza, the Israeli military didn’t just use white phosphorus in open areas as a screen for its troops,” said Fred Abrahams, senior emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch and co-author of the report. “It fired white phosphorus repeatedly over densely populated areas, even when its troops weren’t in the area and safer smoke shells were available. As a result, civilians needlessly suffered and died.”

The report documents a pattern or policy of white phosphorus use that Human Rights Watch says must have required the approval of senior military officers.

“For the needless civilian deaths caused by white phosphorus, senior commanders should be held to account,” Abrahams said.

On February 1, Human Rights Watch submitted detailed questions to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) about its white phosphorus use in Gaza. The IDF did not provide responses, citing an internal inquiry being conducted by the Southern Command.

In the recent Gaza operations, Israeli forces frequently air-burst white phosphorus in 155mm artillery shells in and near populated areas. Each air-burst shell spreads 116 burning white phosphorus wedges in a radius extending up to 125 meters from the blast point. White phosphorus ignites and burns on contact with oxygen, and continues burning at up to 1500 degrees Fahrenheit (816 degrees Celsius) until nothing is left or the oxygen supply is cut. When white phosphorus comes into contact with skin it creates intense and persistent burns.

When used properly in open areas, white phosphorus munitions are not illegal, but the Human Rights Watch report concludes that the IDF repeatedly exploded it unlawfully over populated neighborhoods, killing and wounding civilians and damaging civilian structures, including a school, a market, a humanitarian aid warehouse, and a hospital.

Israel at first denied it was using white phosphorus in Gaza but, facing mounting evidence to the contrary, said that it was using all weapons in compliance with international law. Later it announced an internal investigation into possible improper white phosphorus use.

“Past IDF investigations into allegations of wrongdoing suggest that this inquiry will be neither thorough nor impartial,” Abrahams said. “That’s why an international investigation is required into serious laws of war violations by all parties.”

The IDF knew that white phosphorus poses life-threatening dangers to civilians, Human Rights Watch said. A medical report prepared during the recent hostilities by the Israeli ministry of health said that white phosphorus “can cause serious injury and death when it comes into contact with the skin, is inhaled or is swallowed.” Burns on less than 10 percent of the body can be fatal because of damage to the liver, kidneys, and heart, the ministry report says. Infection is common and the body’s absorption of the chemical can cause serious damage to internal organs, as well as death.

If the IDF intended to use white phosphorus as a smokescreen for its forces, it had a readily available non-lethal alternative to white phosphorus – smoke shells produced by an Israeli company, Human Rights Watch concluded.

All of the white phosphorus shells that Human Rights Watch found were manufactured in the United States in 1989 by Thiokol Aerospace, which was running the Louisiana Army Ammunition Plant at the time. On January 4, Reuters photographed IDF artillery units handling projectiles whose markings indicate that they were produced in the United States at the Pine Bluff Arsenal in September 1991.

To explain the high number of civilian casualties in Gaza, Israeli officials have repeatedly blamed Hamas for using civilians as “human shields” and for fighting from civilian sites. In the cases documented in the report, Human Rights Watch found no evidence of Hamas using human shields in the vicinity at the time of the attacks. In some areas Palestinian fighters appear to have been present, but this does not justify the indiscriminate use of white phosphorus in a populated area.

Human Rights Watch said that for multiple reasons it concluded that the IDF had deliberately or recklessly used white phosphorus munitions in violation of the laws of war. First, the repeated use of air-burst white phosphorus in populated areas until the last days of the operation reveals a pattern or policy of conduct rather than incidental or accidental usage. Second, the IDF was well aware of the effects of white phosphorus and the dangers it poses to civilians. Third, the IDF failed to use safer available alternatives for smokescreens.

The laws of war obligate states to investigate impartially allegations of war crimes. The evidence available demands that Israel investigate and prosecute as appropriate those who ordered or carried out unlawful attacks using white phosphorus munitions, Human Rights Watch said.

The United States government, which supplied Israel with its white phosphorus munitions, should also conduct an investigation to determine whether Israel used it in violation of the laws of war, Human Rights Watch said.

The number of Palestinian children being arrested and detained by Israeli authorities continued to rise in February. According to the latest figures compiled by DCI-Palestine from sources including the Israeli Prison Service (IPS), the number of Palestinian children (12-17 years) detained in Israeli facilities at the end of February was 423. This represents a 37.8% increase over the corresponding period in 2008.

Child appearing in Ofer Military Court, West Bank

DCI-Palestine cannot be sure why the Israeli army is now arresting more children, some as young as 12, but suspects that it is related to the increase in number of public demonstrations in the West Bank against the recent war in Gaza.

Table 1 Number of Palestinian children in Israeli detention Year/Month

Among these children in detention are seven girls, and a further six children held in administrative detention under Israeli Military Order 1591, which provides for detention without charge or trial.
On 6 March 2009, the President of Defence for Children International (DCI) wrote a letter to the Israeli Minister of Justice, Mr. Daniel Friedmann, seeking an official explanation as to why the Israeli army is arresting so many Palestinian children. At the date of issue of this bulletin, Mr. Friedmann has not replied to DCI’s request.
DCI has also notified the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child of these developments, as Israel is party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child which stipulates: ‘[T]he arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child shall be in conformity with the law and shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time.’ Art. 37b

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/01/15/world/worldwatch/entry4723013.shtml

A spokesman for the United Nations humanitarian relief agency in Gaza says Israeli shells containing the controversial chemical white phosphorus struck their compound in Gaza City Thursday, setting at least one building on fire and injuring three people.

UNRWA spokesman Johan Eriksson told the British Broadcasting Corp. via phone from Jerusalem that he had just spoken to the agency’s boss in Gaza City, who confirmed to him that at least three shells containing white phosphorus hit their sprawling compound.

“Fire is raging inside our compound. It is inside a mechanical workshop,” Eriksson told the BBC, adding that shipping pallets loaded with humanitarian aid were also on fire inside the compound.

“Firefighters cannot do anything. White phosphorus has landed and these fires cannot be put out,” said Eriksson. “Three people inside the compound are injured so far.”

He said hundreds of Palestinian refugees were being sheltered at the sprawling compound, but they were at least a couple hundred yards away from the fire. However, he warned that the blaze was dangerously close — just several yards — to fuel tankers and a fuel pump on the compound grounds.

Eriksson said senior U.N. officials were in constant contact with “the highest level of the Israeli Army” and were urging them to “stop firing in the immediate vicinity of the compound.”

“So far our calls have been unheard,” he said.

Eriksson said the senior UNRWA official in Gaza City, John Ging, was a former Irish soldier and had confirmed the use of white phosphorus.

Use of the incendiary chemical has not been completely banned, but aid groups have said Israel’s use of it in densely populated areas violates internationally accepted rules of combat. Israel maintains it only uses weapons in accordance with international laws.