War Crimes (also see Israel War Crimes)
Updated 2024-08-29
2024-08-13 Investigation Details IDF Use of Gaza Civilians as Booby Trap Detectors Believing that “our lives are more important than their lives,” Israel Defense Forces soldiers have widely used Palestinians including civilians as booby trap detectors in Gaza, according to a new Haaretz investigation, the latest of numerous reports detailing IDF use of kidnapped Gazans as human shields.
The report, published Tuesday, features testimonies of IDF soldiers, who said commanders are fully aware of the practice of using captured Palestinians as human shields. One soldier said “there is pride in it,” referring to acts considered war crimes under Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law. https://www.commondreams.org/news/idf-human-shields
2024-07-21 Israeli Soldiers Flaunt War Crimes on Social Media. Why Aren’t They Held Accountable? Israel’s genocide in Gaza may go down as the first genocide in history where the perpetrators have documented, posted, shared and celebrated their crimes on social media. Over the past 10 months, Israeli soldiers in Gaza have taken photos and videos of themselves while they blew up homes and schools, and tortured captives.
To boast of their atrocities against civilians, Israeli forces have routinely filmed themselves demolishing residential blocks in Gaza, which they proceeded to share online. In June, an Israeli soldier filmed himself walking triumphantly amid the ruins and rubble of a destroyed neighborhood in Gaza, while boasting: “We were asked to clear the area. Blow it all up. What can I do, I’m an obedient soldier. Tomorrow there won’t be anything here.” https://truthout.org/articles/israeli-soldiers-flaunt-war-crimes-online-why-arent-they-held-accountable/
2024-07-15 Israel Has “Flattened” UNRWA HQ in Gaza in “Blatant” War Crime, Agency Says After months of successive attacks on humanitarian aid facilities, Israeli forces have now “completely destroyed” the headquarters of the primary aid group for Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the agency reports.
Israeli forces attacked the facility as they carried out their horrific raid of Gaza City last week, leaving nothing but rubble in its place. The building was one of many operated by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the largest aid group for Palestinians in Gaza and beyond.
UNRWA Commissioner Philippe Lazzarini said that Israel’s attack on the facility represents a “blatant” war crime.https://truthout.org/articles/israel-has-flattened-unrwa-hq-in-gaza-in-blatant-war-crime-agency-says/
2024-04-16 “I’m Jewish, and I’ve Covered Wars. I Know War Crimes When I See Them”: Reporter Peter Maass on Gaza We speak with veteran journalist Peter Maass about the Israeli war on Gaza and his new opinion piece for The Washington Post headlined “I’m Jewish, and I’ve covered wars. I know war crimes when I see them.” Maass, who was a senior editor at The Intercept until earlier this year, has spent decades covering wars, including the Bosnian genocide in the 1990s that killed about 100,000 people over nearly four years. He says many of the same war crimes he reported then are part of Israel’s current assault, including sniper attacks on civilians, bombing of civilian infrastructure, attacks on bread lines and besieging whole populations by preventing food and other aid from entering. “What seems to be unfolding in Gaza is even worse than what I saw in Bosnia,” says Maass. Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQV6s0tASGI
2024-03-08 UN Human Rights Chief Decries ‘War Crime’ of Rapidly Expanding Israeli Settlements “The West Bank is already in crisis. Yet, settler violence and settlement-related violations have reached shocking new levels, and risk eliminating any practical possibility of establishing a viable Palestinian state.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/israeli-settlements-2667464747
2024-02-08 Expanded Rafah Assault Would Be ‘Stain on Israel’ and Its Backers: Refugee Group Accusing Israel of waging war on a “gigantic refugee camp” where more than 1 million Palestinians have moved to escape air and ground attacks over the last four months, the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council on Thursday called on the Israel Defense Forces to stop its shelling of the southern Gaza city of Rafah and halt further plans for an intensified assault.
With Israeli military officials reporting that they have not devised a plan to protect civilian lives in Rafah, NRC Secretary-General Jan Egeland said that a ground offensive in the city—previously designated a “safe zone” where more than 1 million Palestinians were told to go as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched air and ground attacks across the enclave—would be a “stain on both Israel and those nations providing arms,” including the United States.
“It would be a bloodbath, and among children and women, among the innocent,” Egeland told CNN, adding that reports of Hamas’ tactic of “blending in with civilians… does not in any way justify indiscriminate attacks.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/israel-attacks-rafah
2024-02-02 Western Officials Warn of War-Crimes Complicity The “Transatlantic Civil Servants’ Statement on Gaza” signals mounting dissent inside Western governments over support for Israel’s war on Gaza as famine and disease spread across the enclave. More than 800 government officials in the United States and Europe released a letter Friday criticizing their countries’ leaders for providing unconditional military and diplomatic support to Israel as it inflicts disaster on Gaza’s population. [The 800-plus figure is ascribed to an organizer of the letter who is quoted anonymously, for fear of reprisal, in a report in The New York Times.]
The authors of the letter, who remain anonymous, wrote that their attempts to voice concerns internally about their governments’ support for Israel’s assault on Gaza “were overruled by political and ideological considerations.” “We are obliged to do everything in our power on behalf of our countries and ourselves to not be complicit in one of the worst human catastrophes of this century,” the letter reads. “We are obliged to warn the publics of our countries, whom we serve, and to act in concert with transnational colleagues.” “Israel has shown no boundaries in its military operations in Gaza, which has resulted in tens of thousands of preventable civilian deaths,” the letter continues. “There is a plausible risk that our governments’ policies are contributing to grave violations of international humanitarian law, war crimes, and even ethnic cleansing or genocide.” https://consortiumnews.com/2024/02/02/western-officials-warn-of-war-crimes-complicity/
2024-01-09 Documenting Israel’s War Crimes | Centre Stage Omar Shakir is the Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch. He has spent years documenting and investigating human rights abuses and Israeli crimes against humanity across Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories. He joins Al Jazeera presenter Rawaa Auge on Centre Stage to explain the processes and difficulties in carrying out his job as well as provide an overview of the long list of crimes Israel has committed against Palestinians. This episode is produced in partnership with the Islam and Muslims Initiative, an international platform that connects Muslims and non-Muslims in the realms of religion, politics, business, media, academia and civil society. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkzhjrDEOzQ
2023-12-20 U.S. Is Quietly SUPPRESSING Effort To Discuss Israel’s War Crimes U.S. diplomats are trying to squelch efforts of their Swiss counterparts to identify violations of the Geneva Conventions by Israel against Hamas in Gaza, according to HuffPost. Ana Kasparian discusses on The Young Turks.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUqd-BneJ98
2023-12-20 ‘TERRORISM!’: Pope Francis Directly Calls Out Israeli War Crimes | The Kyle Kulinski Show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ookF3F0eCsc
2023-12-04 Dutch Court Hears Case Accusing Government of Complicity in Israeli War Crimes “When military goods can contribute to human rights violations or international humanitarian law, that export is strictly prohibited,” said one campaigner. “It is incomprehensible that, despite clear warnings, the government has knowingly deviated from this.”
A Dutch court on Monday heard opening arguments in a case brought by four human rights organizations that have accused the government of the Netherlands of being complicit in Israeli war crimes due to its export of military supplies as Israel kills thousands of civilians in Gaza. Supplying the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) with parts for F-35 fighter jets, which are stored in a warehouse in the Netherlands, puts the Dutch government at risk for “becoming complicit in violations of international humanitarian law,” the director of the Dutch branch of Amnesty International , one of the plaintiffs, said when the lawsuit was announced last month.
Amnesty is joined by Oxfam Novib—the Dutch chapter of Oxfam International—The Rights Forum, and PAX in the case, which is expected to result in a judgement around December 15. https://www.commondreams.org/news/dutch-israel-war-crimes
2023-11-08 Noura Erakat Interview on the BBC About Possible War Crimes in Gaza The BBC spoke with Jadaliyya Co-Editor Noura Erakat about possible war crimes committed in Gaza. The anchor insisted it was Israel’s right to self-defense and that it bore no responsibility for civilian casualties. Erakat refuted both propositions as state propaganda and urged news organizations to exercise more scrutiny.
Noura Erakat is a human rights attorney and an Assistant Professor at Rutgers University, New Brunswick Department of Africana Studies. Her research interests include humanitarian law, refugee law, national security law, and critical race theory. Noura is the author of Justice for Some: Law As Politics in the Question of Palestine (Stanford University Press, 2019). She is a Co-Founding Editor of Jadaliyya e-zine and an Editorial Committee member of the Journal of Palestine Studies. She has served as Legal Counsel for a Congressional Subcommittee in the House of Representatives, as a Legal Advocate for the Badil Center for Palestinian Refugee and Residency Rights, and as the national grassroots organizer and legal advocate at the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation. Noura is the coeditor of Aborted State? The UN Initiative and New Palestinian Junctures, an anthology related to the 2011 and 2012 Palestine bids for statehood at the UN. More recently, Noura released a pedagogical project on the Gaza Strip and Palestine, which includes a short multimedia documentary, “Gaza In Context,” that rehabilitates Israel’s wars on Gaza within a settler-colonial framework. She is also the producer of the short video, “Black Palestinian Solidarity.” She is a frequent commentator, with recent appearances on CBS News, CNN, Fox News, and NPR, among others, and her writings have been widely published in the national media and academic journals. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCo_gODySRc
2023-10-26 War Crimes Committed By Israel Israel’s appalling violations of international law have been on display to the entire world. Since you likely won’t hear about any of them on mainstream media, MintPress director Mnar Adley breaks down some of the worst war crimes carried out by Israel since October 7, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A5bEL_88Lg
2023-10-11 Mustafa Barghouti: Israel’s Siege & Bombing of Gaza Are War Crimes. Is Ethnic Cleansing Next? We’re joined from Ramallah by Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian physician, activist and politician who serves as general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, also known as al-Mubadara, and is a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization Central Council. “I don’t want any Palestinian or Israeli civilian to be killed,” says Barghouti, who argues that a ground operation in Gaza would constitute a campaign of ethnic cleansing, and condemns Israeli occupation and settlement under far-right Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as having destroyed any “prospective for a two-state solution.” Barghouti also discusses President Biden’s abnegation of responsibility toward Palestinian Americans, Egypt’s role in the conflict and the relationship within Palestine between the “totally marginalized” Palestinian Authority and groups like Hamas. https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/11/mustafa_barghouti_gaza_israel_hamas
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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict
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