(I'm sure this has a better home than here, but a gazillion results were returned when I searched for "Gaza," and I don't usually follow most of those, so maybe someone could suggest where that would be or move it to a more appropriate place. I hadn't noticed this discussed here before. It was brought to my attention reading a
local writer's blog I share with you:
AP’s eye on GazaPosted on February 16, 2015 | By Carl Strock
I hope you saw the
Associated Press report the other day about civilian deaths in Gaza. It was quite a job by the AP, three of whose reporters spent several months examining the results of 247 Israeli airstrikes on residential areas in Gaza last summer, interviewing survivors, visiting attack sites, and examining medical records and death certificates. They did not get, or try to get, a complete picture, since they did not investigate the results of Israeli artillery barrages, nor the results of the great majority of Israel’s 5,000 air attacks, but only of those 247 selected strikes.
Still the picture they got was chilling, even if not a surprise to anyone who followed Operation Protective Edge, as Israel called it: Of 844 Palestinians killed in the airstrikes examined by the AP, 508 were women, children and old men, and thus presumably civilians, and of the 240 dead males between the ages of 16 and 59, eligible to be fighters, none appeared in “AP searches of militant websites or on street posters honoring fighters,” meaning there was no evidence that even they were fighters.
A third of those killed, 280 persons, were children younger than 16, “including 19 babies and 108 preschoolers between the ages of 1 and 5.” One of the babies was Shayma Sheik Ali, called “the miracle baby” when she was removed by C-section from the dead body of her mother, who was killed in a bomb attack on her apartment building. The baby was rushed to a hospital and put in an incubator and briefly became a symbol of Palestinian hardihood — briefly, because four days later Israel bombed Gaza’s only remaining power plant, the incubator shut down, and Shayma Sheik Ali died.
The “miracle baby,” while she lasted.
I saw the AP report on AP’s own website and wondered if our newspapers would pick it up and was happy to see that they did — the Times Union, the New York Times, the Washington Post, even the Daily News, which is owned by a supporter of Israel’s armed forces. At least it was on their websites; I don’t see the hard copies of those newspapers.
The bombing of Gaza, 2014: hundreds of children killed.
The material in the report was not really new. The United Nations had already concluded that some 1,400 Palestinian civilians, including some 500 children, had been killed in Israel’s sustained attack on densely populated Gaza last summer. And Physicians for Human Rights had done a
detailed report of their own, more searching than the AP’s, giving more grisly particulars about precise attacks on hospitals and clinics and convoys of fleeing civilians and even on cemeteries while funerals were in progress, killing people who were in the process of burying their dead, but this was the staid and pedestrian Associated Press, reliable passer-on of hard facts, tied to the convention of giving equal time to both sides regardless of whether one side is lying, the somniferously neutral Associated Press, doing its own dogged on-the-ground investigation and coming to its own conclusions, which squared with what Physicians for Human Rights had said, which was, “The attacks were characterized by heavy and unpredictable bombardments of civilian neighborhoods … Such indiscriminate attacks, by aircraft, drones, artillery, tanks and gunships, were unlikely to have been the result of decisions made by individual soldiers or commanders; they must have entailed approval from top-level decision-makers in the Israeli military and/or government.” Thus challenging Israel’s sneering assertion that it was merely suppressing rocket fire and civilian casualties were a lamentable side effect, blamable on Hamas.
Which I guess is why Israel and its supporters were determined to drive out the head of the U.N. commission investigating the Gaza onslaught. He was a Canadian law professor, William Schabas, apparently highly regarded, who, being Jewish himself, could hardly be smeared as anti-Semitic. He quit his post this month after a prolonged Israeli campaign against him and after receiving death threats, some emanating from the United States and Canada, and one, mailed from Israel, that promised he would be killed with “a powerful virus.” The two signers of that letter said they were devoted to “chasing the enemies of Israel and of the Jews wherever they are,” according to
a report in The New York Times.
“When I saw the vigor of the attacks, I wondered, do I really want to get into this?” the professor said of his resignation.
Israel had already refused to allow commission members into the country, much less into Gaza or the occupied West Bank, and was giving no cooperation to the investigation whatsoever, so the campaign against the good professor was by way of a kick in the groin after a spit in the eye.
The curious thing to me is that Israel continues to get away with all this — the massacres of civilians, the thumbing of its nose at international investigations, the bullying of people who raise their voices. It bears thinking about, in my opinion, especially as the prime minister of that outlaw country prepares to address a joint session of Congress, in contempt of the president of the United States. How do you think this happens?
For now, a tip of the hat to the AP for its conscientious reporting and to those newspapers that dared to carry it.
http://blog.timesunion.com/carlstrock/aps-eye-on-gaza/670/And so, in Fair Use, here's the AP's exclusive report http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_ISRAEL_STRIKING_HOMES_ABRIDGED?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-02-13-14-51-49:Feb 13, 2:51 PM EST
AP Exclusive: Israeli house strikes killed mostly civilians By KARIN LAUB, FARES AKRAM and MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH
Associated Press
RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) -- The youngest to die was a 4-day-old girl, the oldest a 92-year-old man.
They were among at least 844 Palestinians killed as a result of airstrikes on Gaza homes during Israel's summer war with the Islamic militant group, Hamas.
Under the rules of war, homes are protected civilian sites unless used for military purposes. Israel says it attacked only legitimate targets, alleging militants used the houses to hide weapons, fighters and command centers. Palestinians say Israel's warplanes often struck without regard for civilians.
The Associated Press examined 247 airstrikes, interviewing witnesses, visiting attack sites and compiling a detailed casualty count.
The review found that 508 of the dead - just over 60 percent - were children, women and older men, all presumed to be civilians. Hamas says it did not use women as fighters in the war, and an Israel-based research group, the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, which tracks militants among the war dead, said it has no evidence women participated in combat.
In addition:
- Children younger than 16 made up one-third of the total: 280 killed, including 19 babies and 108 preschoolers between the ages of 1 and 5.
- In 83 strikes, three or more members of one family died.
- Among those killed were 96 confirmed or suspected militants - just over 11 percent of the total - though the actual number could be higher since armed groups have not released detailed casualty lists.
- The remaining 240 dead were males between the ages of 16 and 59 whose names did not appear in AP searches of militant websites or on street posters honoring fighters.
The review was the most painstaking attempt to date to try to determine who was killed in strikes on homes; Israel's army and Gaza militants have refused to release information about targets and casualties. The count tracked all known airstrikes on homes, though not all strikes had witnesses and damage inspected by the AP wasn't always conclusive.
The number of civilian deaths has been a key issue in the highly charged battle over the dominant narrative of the 50-day war.
Fighting erupted in July, after a month of escalating tensions triggered by Hamas' abduction and killing of three Israeli teens in the West Bank, and an Israeli arrest sweep of Hamas supporters that led to renewed Gaza rocket fire on Israel.
Israel says it tried to avoid harming civilians, even as Hamas embedded weapons and fighters in residential areas.
"Our position is very clear. Israel did not commit war crimes," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon.
Palestinians say Israel attacked with disproportionate force and callous disregard for civilians.
If most of those killed are civilians, "you cannot call them collateral damage," said Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian spokeswoman.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has asked the International Criminal Court to investigate the war, a move that could pave the way for possible prosecution of both Israel and Hamas.
International law experts note that a high civilian death toll alone does not constitute conclusive evidence of war crimes. But it "raises a red flag and suggests that further investigation is warranted," said Alex Whiting, a former top official at the ICC in The Hague, Netherlands.
Israel would not say how many of its 5,000 air attacks were directed at homes. However, it insists it only aimed at legitimate military targets.
Asked for comment on the AP's findings, an Israeli army spokesman, Lt. Peter Lerner, said that "one cannot draw broad conclusions" by examining only a small percentage of Israel's airstrikes.
Reuven Erlich, a former senior Israeli intelligence officer, questioned the reliability of Gaza witnesses and said only military experts could determine what happened in each strike.
According to preliminary U.N. figures, at least 1,483 Palestinian civilians were killed in the war - 66 percent of the overall death toll of 2,205.
Gaza militants fired about 4,300 rockets and mortar rounds at Israel, according to the Israeli military. The barrages drove tens of thousands of Israelis from their homes to seek cover. Five civilians were killed, among them a 4-year-old boy, along with 67 soldiers.
Advocacy groups and U.N. investigators have said that Hamas' battle tactics over the years, including indiscriminate rocket fire at Israel, amount to war crimes.
The AP examined cases in which people were killed in homes or adjacent yards, including those hit by shrapnel or debris from attacks on neighboring buildings. The count excluded artillery strikes which are inherently inaccurate.
Starting in November, three reporters visited the vast majority of attack sites, interviewed survivors and collected hundreds of death certificates - documents recognized by Israel as proof of mortality.
The youngest victim, Shayma Sheik Ali, died four days after her pregnant mother's body was pulled from the rubble of their home in the Deir el-Balah refugee camp.
The infant was delivered by emergency cesarean section, her relatives said. She died July 29, according to her death certificate.
The oldest victim, 92-year-old Abdel Karim Abu Nijem, was killed along with a son, three grandsons and three other relatives, in an airstrike on his home in the Jebaliya refugee camp. Islamic Jihad later confirmed that two fighters were also killed in that strike.
A nephew said the family received no warning. "Otherwise we would have fled," said Mohammed Abu Nijem, whose 29-year-old wife, Soha, and 3-year-old daughter, Ragheb, were killed.
The military said it warned civilians when possible, including through phone calls or "knocks on the roof" with non-explosive missiles, and it aborted some strikes due to civilians in the vicinity.
In January, the Palestinians joined the International Criminal Court, opening the way for possible investigations of both Israel and Hamas. In response, the ICC prosecutor launched a preliminary review of whether a full probe is warranted.
Israel's military says it is conducting a transparent investigation of any wrongdoing by its forces in the Gaza war. However, rights groups in Israel and abroad demand an independent investigation, arguing that house strikes were part of a policy approved at the highest levels and the Israeli military cannot investigate itself.
© 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_ISRAEL_STRIKING_HOMES_ABRIDGED?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-02-13-14-51-49
The bombing of Gaza, 2014: hundreds of children killed.
The “miracle baby,” while she lasted.
