Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2003 19:58:44 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ali Kazmi <thekazmis2001-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: Long article : When will the US bomb the Guardian's Office?


really long article to make up for the lack of
traffic.

SmArTAliK. 
(thanks for the tag, goat)


'I can't imagine anyone who considers himself a human
being can do this' 

On Friday a four-year-old Palestinian boy was shot
dead by a soldier - the most recent child victim of
the Israeli army. Chris McGreal investigates a
shocking series of deaths 

Monday July 28, 2003
The Guardian 

Nine-year-old Abdul Rahman Jadallah's promise to the
corpse of the shy little girl who lived up the street
was, in all probability, kept for him by an Israeli
bullet. The boy - Rahman to his family - barely knew
Haneen Suliaman in life. But whenever there was a
killing in the dense Palestinian towns of southern
Gaza he would race to the morgue to join the throng
around the mutilated victim. Then he would tag along
with the surging, angry funerals of those felled by
rarely seen soldiers hovering far above in helicopters
or cocooned behind the thick concrete of their
pillboxes. Haneen, who was eight years old, had been
shot twice in the head by an Israeli soldier as she
walked down the street in Khan Yunis refugee camp with
her mother, Lila Abu Selmi. 
"Almost every day here the Israelis shoot at random,
so when you hear it you get inside as quickly as
possible," says Mrs Selmi. "Haneen went to the grocery
store to buy some crisps. When the shooting started, I
came out to find her. She was coming down the street
and ran to me and hugged me, crying, 'Mother, mother'.
Two bullets hit her in the head, one straight after
the other. She was still in my arms and she died." 

Later that day, the crowds pushed into the morgue at
the local hospital to see the young girl on the slab,
partly in homage, partly to vent their anger. Rahman
pressed his way to the front so he could touch Haneen.
Then he went home and told his mother, Haniya Abed
Atallah, that he too wanted to die. "Rahman went to
the morgue and kissed Haneen. He came home and told us
he had promised the dead girl he would die too. I made
him apologise to his father," Mrs Atallah says. 

Weeks passed and another Israeli bullet shattered the
life of another young Palestinian girl. Huda Darwish
was sitting at her school desk when a cluster of shots
ripped through the top of a tree outside her classroom
and buried themselves in the wall. But one ricocheted
off the window frame, smashed through the glass and
lodged in the 12-year-old girl's brain. Huda's
teacher, Said Sinwar, was standing in front of the
blackboard. "It was a normal lesson when suddenly
there was this shooting without any warning. The
children were terrified and trying to run. I was
shouting at them to get under their desks. Suddenly
the bullet hit the little girl and she slumped to the
floor with a sigh, not even screaming," he says. 

Sinwar dragged Huda from under her desk and ran with
her across the road to the hospital, itself scarred by
Israeli bullets. After weeks in hospital, she has
started breathing for herself again, through a
windpipe cut into her throat. She has regained use of
her arms and legs, but will be blind for the rest of
her life. 

Rahman was in another class at the same school. The
next day, lessons were cancelled and the boy defied
his mother to tag along at the funeral of a slain
Palestinian fighter. The burial evolved into the
ritual protest of children marching to the security
fence that separates Gaza's dense and beggared Khan
Yunis refugee camp from the spacious religious
exclusivity of the neighbouring Jewish settlement. As
Rahman hung a Palestinian flag on the fence, a bullet
caught him under his left eye. He died on the spot.
"It looks as if the soldiers saw him put the flag on
the fence and they shot him," says Rahman's brother,
19-year-old Ijaram. "There were many kids next to him,
next to the fence. But he was the only one carrying
the flag. Why else would they have shot him?" 

Britain's chief rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, recently
praised the Israeli military as the most humanitarian
in the world because it claims to risk its soldiers'
lives to avoid killing innocent Palestinians. It is a
belief echoed by most Israelis, who revere the army as
an institution of national salvation. Yet among the
most shocking aspects of the past three years of
intifada that has no shortage of horrors - not least
the teenage suicide bombers revelling in mass murder -
has been the killing of children by the Israeli army. 

The numbers are staggering; one in five Palestinian
dead is a child. The Palestinian Centre for Human
Rights (PCHR) says at least 408 Palestinian children
have been killed since the beginning of the intifada
in September 2000. Nearly half were killed in the Gaza
strip, and most of those died in two refugee camps in
the south, Khan Yunis and Rafah. The PCHR says they
were victims of "indiscriminate shooting, excessive
force, a shoot-to-kill policy and the deliberate
targeting of children". 

And children continue to die, even after the ceasefire
declared by Hamas and other groups at the end of June.
On Friday, a soldier at a West Bank checkpoint shot
dead a four-year-old boy, Ghassan Kabaha, and wounded
his two young sisters after "accidentally" letting
loose at a car with a burst of machinegun fire from
his armoured vehicle. The rate of killing since the
beginning of the ceasefire has dropped sharply, but
almost every day the army has continued to fire heavy
machineguns into Khan Yunis or Rafah. Among the latest
victims of apparently indiscriminate shooting were
three teenagers and an eight-year-old, Yousef Abu
Jaza, hit in the knee when soldiers shot at a group of
children playing football in Khan Yunis. 

The military says it is difficult to distinguish
between youths and men who might be Palestinian
fighters, but the statistics show that nearly a
quarter of the children killed were under 12. Last
year alone, 50 children under the age of eight were
shot dead or blown up by the Israeli army in Gaza:
eight, one of whom was two months old, were
slaughtered when a one-tonne bomb was dropped on a
block of flats to kill a lone Hamas leader, Sheikh
Salah Mustafa Shehada. But Rahman, Huda and Haneen
were not "collateral damage" in the assassination of
Hamas "terrorists", or caught in crossfire. There was
no combat when they were shot. There was nothing more
than a single burst of fire, sometimes a single
bullet, from an Israeli soldier's gun. 

It was the same when seven-year-old Ali Ghureiz was
shot in the head on the street outside his house in
Rafah. And when Haneen Abu Sitta, 12, was killed while
walking home after school near the fence with a Jewish
settlement in southern Gaza. And when Nada Madhi, also
12, was shot in the stomach and died as she leaned out
of her bedroom window in Rafah to watch the funeral
procession for another child killed earlier. 

The army offered a senior officer of its southern
command to discuss the shooting of these six children
over a period of just 10 weeks earlier this year. The
military told me I could not name him, even though his
identity is no secret to the Israeli public or his
enemies; it was this officer who explained to the
nation how an army bulldozer came to crush to death
the young American peace activist, Rachel Corrie. 

"I want you to know we are not a bunch of crazies down
here," he says. At his headquarters in the Gush Khatif
Jewish settlement in Gaza, the commander rattles
through the army's version of the shootings: either
the military knew nothing of them, or the children had
been caught in crossfire - a justification used so
frequently, and so often disproved, that it is rarely
believed. But three hours later, after poring over
maps and military logs, timings and regulations, he
concedes that his soldiers were responsible - even
culpable - in several of the killings. 

The Israeli army's instinctive response is to muddy
the waters when confronted with a controversial
killing. At first, it questioned whether Huda was even
shot. I described for the soldiers the scene in the
classroom with blood rippling up the wall behind the
child's desk. 

"I don't know how this happened," says the commander.
"I take responsibility for this. It could have been
one of ours. I think it probably was." 

The killing of Haneen is clearer in the commander's
mind. "We checked it and we know that on the same day
there was shooting of a mortar," he says. "The troops
from the post shot back at the area where the mortar
was launched, the area where the girl was killed. We
didn't see if we hit someone. I assume that a stray
bullet hit Haneen. Unfortunately." Doesn't he think
that simply shooting back in the general direction of
a mortar attack is irresponsible at best? He says not.
"You cannot have soldiers sitting and doing nothing
when they are shot at," he says. 

Haneen's mother, Mrs Selmi, believes her daughter was
shot from "the container". The metal box dangling from
a crane evokes more constant fear in Khan Yunis than
the helicopter rocket attacks and tank incursions.
Nestled inside is an Israeli sniper shielded by
camouflage netting and hoisted high enough to see deep
into the refugee camp. From inside, it is striking how
much the box moves around in the wind, leaving little
hope of an accurate shot. Peering from behind the
camouflage, the view is mostly of Palestinian houses
riddled with bullet holes, a testament to the scale of
incoming Israeli fire. Haneen's home sits a few metres
from the security fence separating Khan Yunis from the
Jewish settlement. But, because the house is
inhabited, the damage is mostly limited to the upper
floor, with 27 bulletholes around the windows. "In
this area, we shoot at the houses," says the Israeli
commander. "We don't want people on the second floor.
I gave the order: shoot at the windows." 

He may concede his soldiers are responsible for
shooting Huda and Haneen, but he denies their
responsibility for the slaying of Rahman, the
nine-year-old shot while hanging the flag at the
security fence. "We saw the children, we saw them for
sure. They always demonstrate in this area after
funerals. But I don't have any report from the troops
on our shooting on this occasion," he says. "We have
rules of engagement that we don't shoot children." 

Seven-year-old Ali Ghureiz's father scoffs at the
claim. "They meant to kill him, for sure," says Talab
Ghureiz. "I can't imagine anyone who considers himself
a human being can do this." 

The killing of Ali and wounding of his five-year-old
brother is particularly disturbing because the
commander admits there was no combat and the boys were
the focus of the soldier's attention. The Ghureiz
house lies on the very edge of Rafah. At the bottom of
the street, an Israeli armoured vehicle and guard
posts sit in the midst of a "no-go" area of tangled
wire, broken buildings and mud. On the other side is
the Egyptian border. "There were three kids. They were
playing 50m from the house," says Ghureiz. "The
Israelis fired two or three bullets, maybe more. No
one could have made a mistake. They were only 100m
from the children. I don't know why they did it. Ali
was shot in the face immediately below his left eye.
It was a big bullet. It did a lot of damage," he
whispers. 

"This is the first I've heard of this," says the
commander. "According to the log, in the afternoon
there were children trying to cross the border. The
tower fired five bullets and didn't report any
children hurt. Usually with children this age, we
don't shoot. There is a very strict rule of engagement
about shooting at children. You don't do it." But Ali
is dead. "They [Palestinian fighters] send children to
the fence. An older guy, usually 25 or so, gives them
the order to go to the fence, or dig next to it. They
know we don't shoot at children. If one of my soldiers
goes out to chase them away, a sniper will be waiting
for him." 

Fences usually mark defined limits but, as with so
much in the occupied territories, the rules are
deliberately vague. There is an ill-defined ban on
"approaching" the security fences separating Gaza from
Israel or the Jewish settlements. "We have a danger
zone 100 to 200m from the fence around Gush Katif
[settlement]. They [the Palestinians] know where the
danger zone is," the commander says. But many houses
in Rafah and Khan Yunis are within the "danger zone".
Children play in its shadow, and many adults fear
walking to their own front doors. 

"We have in our rules of engagement how to handle
this," the commander says. "During the day, if someone
is inside the zone without a weapon and not attempting
to harm or with hostile intent, then we do not shoot.
If he has a weapon or hostile intent, you can shoot to
kill. If he doesn't have a weapon, you shoot 50m from
him into something solid that will stop the bullet,
like a wall. You shoot twice in the air, and if he
continues to move then you are allowed to shoot him in
the leg." 

The regulations are drummed into every soldier, but
there is ample evidence that the army barely enforces
them. The military's critics say the vast majority of
soldiers do not commit such crimes but those that do
are rarely called to account. The result is an
atmosphere of impunity. Israel's army chief-of-staff,
Lieutenant General Moshe Yaalon, claims that every
shooting of a civilian is investigated. "Harming
innocent civilians is firstly a matter of morals and
values, and we cannot permit ourselves to let this
happen. I deal with it personally," he told the
Israeli press. But Yaalon has not dealt personally
with any of the killings of the six children reported
on here. 

The army's indifferent handling of the shootings of
civilians has even drawn stinging criticism from a
member of Ariel Sharon's Likud party in the Israeli
parliament, Michael Eitan. "I am not certain that the
responsible officials are aware of the fact that there
are gross violations of human rights in the field,
despite army regulations," he said. 

The case of Khalil al-Mughrabi is telling. The
11-year-old was shot dead in Rafah by the Israeli army
two years ago as he played football with a group of
friends near the security fence. One of Israel's most
respected human rights organisations, B'Tselem, wrote
to the judge advocate general's office, responsible
for prosecuting soldiers, demanding an inquiry. Months
later, the office wrote back saying that Khalil was
shot by soldiers who acted with "restraint and
control" to disperse a riot in the area. However, the
judge advocate general's office made the mistake of
attaching a copy of its own, supposedly secret,
investigation which came to a quite different
conclusion - that the riot had been much earlier in
the day and the soldiers who shot the child should not
have opened fire. The report says a "serious deviation
from obligatory norms of behaviour" took place. 

In the report, the chief military prosecutor, Colonel
Einat Ron, then spelled out alternative false
scenarios that should be offered to B'Tselem. B'Tselem
said the internal report confirmed that the army has a
policy of covering up its crimes. "The message that
the judge advocate general's office transmits to
soldiers is clear: soldiers who violate the 'Open Fire
Regulations', even if their breach results in death,
will not be investigated and will not be prosecuted." 

Towards the end of the interview, the commander in
Gaza finally concedes that his soldiers were at fault
to some degree or other in the killing of most - but
not all - of the children we discussed. They include a
12-year-old girl, Haneen Abu Sitta, shot dead in Rafah
as she walked home from school near a security fence
around one of the fortified Jewish settlements. The
army moved swiftly to cover it up. It leaked a false
story to more compliant parts of the Israeli media,
claiming Haneen was shot during a gun battle between
troops and "terrorists" in an area known for weapons
smuggling across the border from Egypt. But the army
commander concedes that there was no battle. "Every
name of a child here, it makes me feel bad because
it's the fault of my soldiers. I need to learn and see
the mistakes of my troops," he says. But by the end of
the interview, he is combative again. "I remember the
Holocaust. We have a choice, to fight the terrorists
or to face being consumed by the flames again," he
says. 

The Israeli army insists that interviews with its
commanders about controversial issues are off the
record. Depending on what the officer says, that bar
is sometimes lifted. I ask to be able to name the
commander in Gaza. The army refuses. "He has admitted
his soldiers were responsible for at least some of
those killings," says an army spokesman who sat in on
the interview. "In this day and age that raises the
prospect of war crimes, not here but if he travels
abroad he could be arrested some time in the future.
Some people might think there is something wrong
here."



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