[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [GushShalom] Army at Rafah - severe violations of
international law
Alfred Kagan
akagan at uiuc.edu
Wed Oct 15 08:50:15 CDT 2003
>From: "Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc)" <info at gush-shalom.org>
>Subject: [GushShalom] Army at Rafah - severe violations of international law
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>Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 01:24:41 +0200
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>GUSH SHALOM pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 www.gush-shalom.org
>
>Press release, October 14, 2003
>
>= == = == = == = == =
>== = == =
>Soldiers and officers may be charged with severe violations. Those
>responsible failed to make army personnel adhere to legal norms, says
>Gush Shalom in letter to General Menachem Finkelstein, head of the Israeli
>Army's Legal Branch.
>= == = == = == = == =
>== = == =
>
>Following is the translation of a letter sent today by Gush Shalom - Israeli
>Peace Bloc - to General Menachem Finkelstein, head of the Israeli Army's
>Legal Branch.
>
>Dear General Finkelstein
>
>Last Friday (October 10) the armed forces of the state of Israel staged a
>wide-scale invasion of the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip and its
>adjacent refugee camps - the largest-scale invasion of Rafah launched
>during the three years of the present confrontation. In the course of that
>invasion, the army deployed armoured bulldozers which embarked upon
>systematic demolition of Palestinian homes. According to reports in
>today's Israeli and international press, 120 houses were destroyed - some
>of them being three- and four-storey houses in the refugee camp's main
>street - leaving 1240 people homeless. This morning (Tuesday, October 14)
>it was reported that the invasion of Rafah was resumed and that the
>bulldozers are at this very moment engaged on yet further destruction of
>Palestinian homes.
>
>Destruction on such a wide scale does not, and cannot, have any relation
>to the army's effort to locate tunnels used by arms smugglers - the official
>pretext under which this invasion was launched. This is manifestly a
>collective punishment of Rafah's entire population, an act constituting a
>severe violation of International Law and specifically of the Fourth Geneva
>Convention. All soldiers and officers involved in these acts - from the IDF
>Supreme Command, through Colonel Eyal Eisenberg of the Givati Brigade,
>which the Israel press mentioned as being in direct command of the
>operation, and down to the bulldozer drivers implementing the actual
>destruction - are liable to be charged with severe offences.
>
>This is not the first time that the army perpetrates such acts in Rafah. It is
>part of an ongoing policy, which started already in the term of General
>Yom Tov Samiya in the IDF Southern Command [1997-2001]. General
>Samiya was quite frank in describing that policy at an interview to Kol
>Yisrael Radio on September 26, 2001. According to Samiya, it is the army's
>aim to totally raze all houses and structures within a strip of 300-400 metres
>of the Egyptian border - a very densely populated area in which tens of
>thousands live - so as to create a fait accompli and ensure that this
>evacuated strip remain under Israeli rule in any permanent status
>agreement. Samiya also noted that the policy is being carried out
>incrementally, and that any conspicuous suicide bombing is being used as
>a pretext to "pull down another two or three rows of houses" (even when
>the bombing had nothing to do with Rafah).
>
>Ever since the army is consistently carrying out this policy, causing a
>terrible suffering to the people of Rafah. Over the years, the Army's Legal
>Branch did nothing to stop this manifestly illegal policy, totally abdicating
>its responsibility to make soldiers and officers adhere to legal norms of
>behavior. This ringing silence has made the Legal Branch itself share in
>legal and moral responsibility to severe and continuous violations of
>International Law - and is increasing the chance that soldiers and officers
>may eventually face punishment by international judicial agencies.
>
>Sincerely Yours
>
>Uri Avnery
>Adam Keller
>For the Gush Shalom Movement
>
>Note: the Samiya interview was extensively quoted by Akiva Eldar in the
>article "Under cover of revenge" (Ha'aretz, January 15, 2002) written in the
>wake of an earlier invasion of Rafah, in the course of which 59 houses
>were destroyed.
>
>For more information:
>Gush Shalom Spokesperson Adam Keller: 03-5565804 / 056-709603
>
>Appendix a)
>http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE150912003?open&of=ENG-
>ISR
>[Amnesty International: Wanton destruction constitutes a war crime ]
>
>Appendix b)
>http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/349478.html
>[Arnon Regular's eyewitness report on the Rafah destruction in Haaretz,
>Oct.14]
>
>
>
>
>
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--
Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA
tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu
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