ideological criminal

On January 7, 2009, the IDF shelled the UN-run Al-Fakhura school in Gaza (BBC), killing at least 43, and wounding dozens more (Al Jazeera English).  Robert Fisk, that same day, wrote in The Independent:

So once again, Israel has opened the gates of hell to the Palestinians. Forty civilian refugees dead in a United Nations school, three more in another. Not bad for a night’s work in Gaza by the army that believes in “purity of arms”. But why should we be surprised?

Have we forgotten the 17,500 dead – almost all civilians, most of them children and women – in Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon; the 1,700 Palestinian civilian dead in the Sabra-Chatila massacre; the 1996 Qana massacre of 106 Lebanese civilian refugees, more than half of them children, at a UN base; the massacre of the Marwahin refugees who were ordered from their homes by the Israelis in 2006 then slaughtered by an Israeli helicopter crew; the 1,000 dead of that same 2006 bombardment and Lebanese invasion, almost all of them civilians?

What is amazing is that so many Western leaders, so many presidents and prime ministers and, I fear, so many editors and journalists, bought the old lie; that Israelis take such great care to avoid civilian casualties. “Israel makes every possible effort to avoid civilian casualties,” yet another Israeli ambassador said only hours before the Gaza massacre. And every president and prime minister who repeated this mendacity as an excuse to avoid a ceasefire has the blood of last night’s butchery on their hands. Had George Bush had the courage to demand an immediate ceasefire 48 hours earlier, those 40 civilians, the old and the women and children, would be alive.

What happened was not just shameful. It was a disgrace. Would war crime be too strong a description? For that is what we would call this atrocity if it had been committed by Hamas. So a war crime, I’m afraid, it was. After covering so many mass murders by the armies of the Middle East – by Syrian troops, by Iraqi troops, by Iranian troops, by Israeli troops – I suppose cynicism should be my reaction. But Israel claims it is fighting our war against “international terror”. The Israelis claim they are fighting in Gaza for us, for our Western ideals, for our security, for our safety, by our standards. And so we are also complicit in the savagery now being visited upon Gaza.

I’ve reported the excuses the Israeli army has served up in the past for these outrages. Since they may well be reheated in the coming hours, here are some of them: that the Palestinians killed their own refugees, that the Palestinians dug up bodies from cemeteries and planted them in the ruins, that ultimately the Palestinians are to blame because they supported an armed faction, or because armed Palestinians deliberately used the innocent refugees as cover.

He goes on to write, “we’ll almost certainly have the Hamas-was-in-the-UN-school lie,” which we received that very day.  DN! reported,

Israel admitted to firing mortar rounds at the school but claimed its actions were justified, because Hamas militants were using the school to fire rockets. But the UN said there were no militants at the school.

John Ging, the director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency: “We very carefully vet anybody seeking shelter in our locations. We have experienced, long-serving staff who are managing those facilities. We are hugely sensitive to the integrity of our facilities at this time of conflict. And we have zero tolerance for any violations by any of the militants. And so far we’ve not had violations by militants of our facilities.”

Israeli Army spokesperson Avital Leibovich accused Hamas of using Palestinians as human shields.

Avital Leibovich: “The fact that Hamas is putting civilians in areas where military activity takes place is horrible, I think. I think Hamas should be accountable for any civilian in those areas, which he located those warehouses, those storages of Grads (rockets) and so on.”

The New York Times reported,

Mr. Gilad, [a senior Israeli defense official], told Israeli Army radio: “This school served as a base for Hamas men whose identity we know. They fired from inside the school compound and the army fired back at the source. The time was after school hours, and this school is an example of the cynical and cruel use Hamas does with civilian facilities, inducing U.N. facilities, because this school equaled a U.N. facility.”

The very next day, DN! reported,

UN spokesperson Chris Gunness said Israeli officials have privately retracted their widely cited initial claim that Hamas militants were firing from the school.

UNRWA spokesperson Chris Gunness: “I’ve been authorized to say that the Israeli army, in private briefings with diplomats, is admitting that the firing that came out of Jabalya yesterday, the militant fire, was not from within the UNRWA school compound, it was from outside the UNRWA school compound. This is a crucial distinction, because serious allegations have been made against UNRWA that the militants were firing from within. In fact, those allegations are baseless. It, as far as we’re concerned, illustrates the need for a full and independent investigation. It’s been shown that these allegations against us are completely baseless.”