*** Israel Put on Notice for Violations (Once Again) ***

[Huan]

UN Launches Probe Into Israeli Violations In Gaza
Reuters | By Stephanie Nebehay and Tom Miles
Posted: 07/23/2014 12:29 pm EDT

* UN rights forum sets independent international inquiry

* Israel and ally United States reject probe

* Pillay says killing civilians, shelling homes are war crimes

* UN rights chief also condemns Hamas firing of rockets

* Palestinian minister says Israel should be held to account (recasts after vote, adds speeches by Israel, US, Palestinians)

By Stephanie Nebehay and Tom Miles

GENEVA, July 23 (Reuters) - The United Nations on Wednesday launched an international inquiry into human rights violations and crimes that may have been committed by Israel during its military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

The U.N. Human Rights Council condemned the Israeli assault which it said had involved "disproportionate and indiscriminate attacks", including aerial bombing of civilian areas, collective punishment, and the killing of more than 650 Palestinians.

At the end of an emergency session, the 47-member forum adopted a resolution presented by Palestinians by a vote of 29 states in favor, 1 against (the United States) with 17 abstentions (including all nine European Union members).

"We came here to try to achieve together with you at least minimum justice for children who are being dismembered, for women whose bodies are lying in the streets, to find some justice for those who are being exterminated," said Ibrahim Khraishi, ambassador of the Palestinian observer mission to the U.N. in Geneva.

Israel and its ally United States rejected the probe, calling it one-sided and counterproductive amid efforts to clinch a ceasefire. Israel has observer status at the talks.

Israel ambassador Eviator Manor, in remarks before the vote, told the forum: "Why does this Council believe that naming and shaming Israel will get it anywhere?

"Throughout the entire escalation of events, Israel has always acted with maximum restraint, fully committed to international law in general and the laws of armed conflict."

Israel had established its own special commission of inquiry "with a scope beyond what is required under international and criminal law," Manor said.

"Hamas is the aggressor. Hamas is the one committing war crimes ... Open your eyes to reality," he said.

POSSIBLE WAR CRIMES

U.N. High Commissioner Navi Pillay said that Israel may have committed war crimes by killing civilians and shelling houses and hospitals during its offensive in Gaza that began on July 8.

She also condemned the firing of rockets and mortars by Palestinian militants into Israel, saying such acts also constitute breaches of international law.

Pillay, citing cases Israeli air strikes and shelling hitting houses and hospitals in the crowded coastal enclave, said: "These are just a few examples where there seems to be a strong possibility that international humanitarian law has been violated, in a manner that could amount to war crimes.

"Every one of these incidents must be properly and independently investigated," she said.

Pillay, a former U.N. war crimes judge, said that any warning by Israel to Gaza residents ahead of strikes must be "clear, credible and allow sufficient time for people to react".

Gaza fighting continued to rage on Wednesday, displacing thousands more Palestinians in the battered territory as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said indirect truce talks between Israel and Hamas had made some progress.

The Geneva forum convened the special one-day session at the request of the Palestinians, Egypt and Pakistan.

Israel, which accuses the Council of bias, boycotted the Geneva forum for 20 months, resuming cooperation in October.

Its envoy Manor defended Israel's air strikes and ground assault on Gaza as being necessary to defend the Israeli people.

The Council "cannot be supportive of an organization that is no different than al-Qaeda, ISIS (Islamic State), Boko Haram, Hezbollah and other extreme radical Islamist organizations that negate the very essence of human rights," Manor said.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki hit back, accusing Israeli forces of perpetrating "heinous crimes" by destroying whole neighborhoods and killing entire families.

The U.N. aid agency OCHA said at least five entire families, with 36 people, had been killed in the past few days.

The United States said that Kerry was seeking to secure an immediate ceasefire based on the Nov. 2012 ceasefire agreement.

U.S. ambassador Keith Harper, calling for a vote, said that the resolution was "destructive" and a "political and biased instrument".

"Once again, this Council fails to address the situation in Israel and in the Palestinian territories with any semblance of balance. There is no mention of indiscriminate rocket attacks by Hamas into Israel or the tunnels used to cause mayhem," he said.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay and Tom Miles; editing by Sonya Hepinstall)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: UN Launches Probe Into Israeli Violations In Gaza

 

[shuntmaster]

Who cares?
What did UN do to stop the Hamas terrorist rocket attacks on Israeli civilians?

 

[Hypersonicmissiles]

Who cares?
What did UN do to stop the Hamas terrorist rocket attacks on Israeli civilians?

Israeli terrorists deserve all the rockets and condemnation. Palestinian freedom fighters are protecting their country and their children. Israel is a truly despotic regime full of child killers.

 

[shuntmaster]

Israeli terrorists deserve all the rockets and condemnation. Palestinian freedom fighters are protecting their country and their children. Israel is a truly despotic regime full of child killers.

This round of fight was begun by Hamas, knowing fully well Israel is going to strike back hard.

Hamas Gambled on War As Its Woes Grew in Gaza
World | Anne Barnard, The New York Times

AP

Smoke and fire from the explosion of an Israeli strike rise over Gaza City on Tuesday, July 22, 2014, as Israeli airstrikes pummeled a wide range of locations along the coastal area and diplomatic efforts intensified to end the two-week war.

Gaza City, Gaza Strip: When war between Israel and Hamas broke out two weeks ago, the Palestinian militant group was so hamstrung, politically, economically and diplomatically, that its leaders appeared to feel they had nothing to lose.

Hamas took what some here call "option zero," gambling that it could shift the balance with its trump cards: its arms and militants.

"There were low expectations in terms of its performance against the recent round of Israeli incursions. It's been exceeding all expectations," said Abdullah Al-Arian, a professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in Qatar who is now in Washington. "And it's likely to come out in a far better position than in the last three years and maybe the last decade."

Hamas had been struggling. The turmoil in the region meant it lost one of its main sponsors, President Bashar Assad of Syria, whom it broke with over his brutal fight against a Sunni Muslim-led insurgency, and weakened its alliance with Iran. It lost support in Egypt when the Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi, was ousted and replaced with a military-backed government hostile to Hamas.

Unemployment in Gaza is around 50 percent, having risen steeply since Israel pulled out its troops and settlers in 2005 and severely tightened border restrictions. Hamas appeared powerless to end the near-blockade of its border by Israel and more recently Egypt. It could not even pay its 40,000 government workers their salaries.

The group was so handicapped that it agreed to enter into a pact with its rival party, Fatah, to form a new government. But that seemed only to make matters worse, sowing division within its own ranks, with some in the military wing angry at the concession, while providing none of the economic relief Hamas had hoped for.

When Hamas sent a barrage of rockets into Israel, simmering hostilities, and back and forth strikes, erupted into war.

At first, when Hamas rockets were being intercepted mainly by Israel's Iron Dome system as Israel hit Gaza with devastating force, the group strove to persuade its supporters that it was having enough impact on Israel to wrest concessions: Its radio stations blared fictional reports about Israeli casualties.

But as it wore on, the conflict revealed that Hamas' secret tunnel network leading into Israel was far more extensive, and sophisticated, than previously known. It also was able to inflict some pain on Israel, allowing Hamas to declare success even as it drew a devastating and crushing response. Its fighters were able to infiltrate Israel multiple times during an intensive Israeli ground invasion. Its militants have killed at least 27 Israeli soldiers and claim to have captured an Israeli soldier who was reported missing in battle, a potential bargaining chip.

And on Tuesday its rockets struck a blow to Israel - psychological and economic - by forcing a halt in international flights. Hamas once again looks strong in the eyes of its supporters and has shown an increasingly hostile region that it remains a force to be reckoned with.

Hamas, Arian said, has demonstrated that "as a movement, it is simply not going anywhere."
But Hamas' gains could be short-lived if it does not deliver Gazans a better life. Israel imposes severe restrictions on what can be brought into Gaza, such as construction materials, because it sees Hamas as serious security threat, and the discovery of the tunnels has served only to validate that concern.

So far, at least 620 Palestinians, most of them, civilians, have been killed, according to the United Nations. Gazans did not get a vote when Hamas chose to escalate conflict, nor did they when Hamas selected areas near their homes, schools and mosques to fire rockets from the densely populated strip. At the family house of four boys killed last week by an Israeli strike while playing on a beach, some wailing women cursed Hamas along with Israel.

"It comes at an exceptionally high price," said Khaled Elgindy, a fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former adviser to the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah. "When the bombs stop and the dust settles, people might have different calculations about cost-benefit."

It is also unclear whether, when the fighting ends, Hamas will have the same kind of foreign support it has had in the past to rebuild its arsenal or its infrastructure; Egypt, under President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, has destroyed hundreds of the tunnels that were used to bring in arms, money and supplies, and has kept the proper border crossing mostly closed.

There are also some diplomatic efforts underway seeking to force Hamas to surrender its weapons in exchange for a cease-fire, a demand it is not likely to accept.

Omar Shaban, an economist and political independent, sat in his walled garden in the southern Gaza town of Deir al-Balah on Wednesday as shells crackled nearby and said he fervently hoped, but also doubted, that both Hamas and Israel's government would reach for a substantive deal.

"This war will end tomorrow or after tomorrow, we will have another cease-fire, we will have another siege, and Hamas will continue to run the scene," he said.

"Gaza is a big problem for everybody, for Hamas, for Fatah, for Israel," he added, ticking off the list: shortages of water, housing and medicine, a population explosion, growing extremism.

In exchange for a cease-fire, Hamas is demanding Israel and Egypt open their borders to end the restrictions on the movement of people and goods - the most immediate issue for ordinary Gazans. It is also asking for the release of prisoners - but avoiding the deeper political issues of the conflict.

Shaban said that Hamas, confronted in recent years with the often conflicting requirements of its roles as an armed resistance group and a governing party, for once was "being clever enough to demand conditions that are in touch with the people. The people are realistic."

Bassem Naim, a member of Hamas' political wing and a former health minister in Gaza, acknowledged that relations have soured with Iran and the Arab world but said that it could survive.

"I can't deny the difficulty," he said in a recent interview. "But Hamas was active and operating here inside the country before the Muslim Brotherhood was in the presidential palace" in Egypt.

Hamas won Palestinian elections in 2006, but an international boycott prevented it from governing. It returned to power in Gaza in 2007 after ousting the Fatah-led government by force.

Hamas overreached, Shaban said, more than doubling Gaza's administrative budget to more than $800 million - not including the financing of the militant Izzedine al-Qassam brigades.

But as the recent fight with Israel has revealed, Hamas was importing tons of cement - desperately needed for Gazan schools and houses and construction jobs - to reinforce the tunnels it built to infiltrate Israel and hide its weapons.

"They have different priorities," Shaban said of the military wing. "Don't send rockets while we don't have milk for our children."

But, he added, "do we stop struggling with Israel? I believe in peace, a two-state solution, I never liked conflict. But Israel did not leave us anything. What Hamas is doing is partially supported by the people."
© 2014, The New York Times News Service

 

[Hypersonicmissiles]

This round of fight was begun by Hamas, knowing fully well Israel is going to strike back hard.

Hamas Gambled on War As Its Woes Grew in Gaza
World | Anne Barnard, The New York Times

AP

Smoke and fire from the explosion of an Israeli strike rise over Gaza City on Tuesday, July 22, 2014, as Israeli airstrikes pummeled a wide range of locations along the coastal area and diplomatic efforts intensified to end the two-week war.

Gaza City, Gaza Strip: When war between Israel and Hamas broke out two weeks ago, the Palestinian militant group was so hamstrung, politically, economically and diplomatically, that its leaders appeared to feel they had nothing to lose.

Hamas took what some here call "option zero," gambling that it could shift the balance with its trump cards: its arms and militants.

"There were low expectations in terms of its performance against the recent round of Israeli incursions. It's been exceeding all expectations," said Abdullah Al-Arian, a professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in Qatar who is now in Washington. "And it's likely to come out in a far better position than in the last three years and maybe the last decade."

Hamas had been struggling. The turmoil in the region meant it lost one of its main sponsors, President Bashar Assad of Syria, whom it broke with over his brutal fight against a Sunni Muslim-led insurgency, and weakened its alliance with Iran. It lost support in Egypt when the Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi, was ousted and replaced with a military-backed government hostile to Hamas.

Unemployment in Gaza is around 50 percent, having risen steeply since Israel pulled out its troops and settlers in 2005 and severely tightened border restrictions. Hamas appeared powerless to end the near-blockade of its border by Israel and more recently Egypt. It could not even pay its 40,000 government workers their salaries.

The group was so handicapped that it agreed to enter into a pact with its rival party, Fatah, to form a new government. But that seemed only to make matters worse, sowing division within its own ranks, with some in the military wing angry at the concession, while providing none of the economic relief Hamas had hoped for.

When Hamas sent a barrage of rockets into Israel, simmering hostilities, and back and forth strikes, erupted into war.

At first, when Hamas rockets were being intercepted mainly by Israel's Iron Dome system as Israel hit Gaza with devastating force, the group strove to persuade its supporters that it was having enough impact on Israel to wrest concessions: Its radio stations blared fictional reports about Israeli casualties.

But as it wore on, the conflict revealed that Hamas' secret tunnel network leading into Israel was far more extensive, and sophisticated, than previously known. It also was able to inflict some pain on Israel, allowing Hamas to declare success even as it drew a devastating and crushing response. Its fighters were able to infiltrate Israel multiple times during an intensive Israeli ground invasion. Its militants have killed at least 27 Israeli soldiers and claim to have captured an Israeli soldier who was reported missing in battle, a potential bargaining chip.

And on Tuesday its rockets struck a blow to Israel - psychological and economic - by forcing a halt in international flights. Hamas once again looks strong in the eyes of its supporters and has shown an increasingly hostile region that it remains a force to be reckoned with.

Hamas, Arian said, has demonstrated that "as a movement, it is simply not going anywhere."
But Hamas' gains could be short-lived if it does not deliver Gazans a better life. Israel imposes severe restrictions on what can be brought into Gaza, such as construction materials, because it sees Hamas as serious security threat, and the discovery of the tunnels has served only to validate that concern.

So far, at least 620 Palestinians, most of them, civilians, have been killed, according to the United Nations. Gazans did not get a vote when Hamas chose to escalate conflict, nor did they when Hamas selected areas near their homes, schools and mosques to fire rockets from the densely populated strip. At the family house of four boys killed last week by an Israeli strike while playing on a beach, some wailing women cursed Hamas along with Israel.

"It comes at an exceptionally high price," said Khaled Elgindy, a fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former adviser to the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah. "When the bombs stop and the dust settles, people might have different calculations about cost-benefit."

It is also unclear whether, when the fighting ends, Hamas will have the same kind of foreign support it has had in the past to rebuild its arsenal or its infrastructure; Egypt, under President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, has destroyed hundreds of the tunnels that were used to bring in arms, money and supplies, and has kept the proper border crossing mostly closed.

There are also some diplomatic efforts underway seeking to force Hamas to surrender its weapons in exchange for a cease-fire, a demand it is not likely to accept.

Omar Shaban, an economist and political independent, sat in his walled garden in the southern Gaza town of Deir al-Balah on Wednesday as shells crackled nearby and said he fervently hoped, but also doubted, that both Hamas and Israel's government would reach for a substantive deal.

"This war will end tomorrow or after tomorrow, we will have another cease-fire, we will have another siege, and Hamas will continue to run the scene," he said.

"Gaza is a big problem for everybody, for Hamas, for Fatah, for Israel," he added, ticking off the list: shortages of water, housing and medicine, a population explosion, growing extremism.

In exchange for a cease-fire, Hamas is demanding Israel and Egypt open their borders to end the restrictions on the movement of people and goods - the most immediate issue for ordinary Gazans. It is also asking for the release of prisoners - but avoiding the deeper political issues of the conflict.

Shaban said that Hamas, confronted in recent years with the often conflicting requirements of its roles as an armed resistance group and a governing party, for once was "being clever enough to demand conditions that are in touch with the people. The people are realistic."

Bassem Naim, a member of Hamas' political wing and a former health minister in Gaza, acknowledged that relations have soured with Iran and the Arab world but said that it could survive.

"I can't deny the difficulty," he said in a recent interview. "But Hamas was active and operating here inside the country before the Muslim Brotherhood was in the presidential palace" in Egypt.

Hamas won Palestinian elections in 2006, but an international boycott prevented it from governing. It returned to power in Gaza in 2007 after ousting the Fatah-led government by force.

Hamas overreached, Shaban said, more than doubling Gaza's administrative budget to more than $800 million - not including the financing of the militant Izzedine al-Qassam brigades.

But as the recent fight with Israel has revealed, Hamas was importing tons of cement - desperately needed for Gazan schools and houses and construction jobs - to reinforce the tunnels it built to infiltrate Israel and hide its weapons.

"They have different priorities," Shaban said of the military wing. "Don't send rockets while we don't have milk for our children."

But, he added, "do we stop struggling with Israel? I believe in peace, a two-state solution, I never liked conflict. But Israel did not leave us anything. What Hamas is doing is partially supported by the people."
© 2014, The New York Times News Service

It's always the fault of the aggressive Israeli regime. Palestine is merely protecting its innocent children against barbaric Israeli military aggression and economic embargo.

Israel is the anti-human state. They hate the mere sight of children peacefully playing.

 

[shuntmaster]

It's always the fault of the aggressive Israeli regime. Palestine is merely protecting its innocent children against barbaric Israeli military aggression and economic embargo.

Israel is the anti-human state. They hate the mere sight of children peacefully playing.

Hamas kidnapped, tortured and killed 3 Israeli teenagers. Then they fired 100's of rockets at Israeli civilians.

 

[Hypersonicmissiles]

Hamas kidnapped, tortured and killed 3 Israeli teenagers. Then they fired 100's of rockets at Israeli civilians.

Those are Israeli regime propaganda to use as an excuse to steal more Palestinian land. Only the gullible lunatics believe such laughable regime propaganda. Palestine has every right to defend its children from Israeli aggression.

 

[shuntmaster]

Those are Israeli regime propaganda to use as an excuse to steal more Palestinian land. Only the gullible lunatics believe such laughable regime propaganda. Palestine has every right to defend its children from Israeli aggression.

Israel has every right to fight against Islamic terrorism.

Those are Israeli regime propaganda to use as an excuse to steal more Palestinian land. Only the gullible lunatics believe such laughable regime propaganda.

There is no attack going on in Gaza.. its all a propaganda of Islamic media to show Israel in bad light.

 

[Hypersonicmissiles]

Israel has every right to fight against Islamic terrorism.

Palestine is merely fighting for its human dignity that is being stripped away by a truly mass murdering regime. Israel is the world's only terrorist state.

 

[shuntmaster]

Palestine is merely fighting for its human dignity that is being stripped away by a truly mass murdering regime. Israel is the world's only terrorist state.

Hamas is a world recognised terrorist organisation with stated goal of destruction of Israel and genocide of all Jews. Israel is fighting for its survival.

 

[Hypersonicmissiles]

There is no attack going on in Gaza.. its all a propaganda of Islamic media to show Israel in bad light.

Nope. The barbaric and heinous slaughter of Palestinian children is being covered by every media Western and non-Western media all around the world. Israel is just a thuggish regime that loves to drink the blood of innocent Palestinians. Israelis are sick and twisted 'humans'.

 

[shuntmaster]

Nope. The barbaric and heinous slaughter of Palestinian children is being covered by every media Western and non-Western media all around the world. Israel is just a thuggish regime that loves to drink the blood of innocent Palestinians. Israelis are sick and twisted 'humans'.

Of course, we all know that is all the Islmofascist propaganda..

 

[Hypersonicmissiles]

Hamas is a world recognised terrorist organisation with stated goal of destruction of Israel and genocide of all Jews. Israel is fighting for its survival.

Hamas is a democratically elected government that is recognised by pretty much the entire non-Western world. They advocate taking back Palestinian land from Israeli aggressors and most of the world supports them. Palestine is fighting for its very existence. I support peaceful Palestinians.

 

[shuntmaster]

Hamas is a democratically elected government that is recognised by pretty much the entire non-Western world.

That makes whole of Gaza strip a terrorist state. Israel has every right to attack it.

 

[Hypersonicmissiles]

Of course, we all know that is all the Islmofascist propaganda..

Even non-islamic countries are covering the slaughter of Palestinian children. Israeli image is being destroyed worldwide. There are worldwide protests against the Israeli slaughter of Palestinian children. Israel seems to be purposefully targeting Palestinian children. Israel is being named and shamed all across the world.