Israel conducts ‘human shield‘ probe

clipped from www.localnewsleader.com Military police are investigating a high-ranking West Bank commander on suspicion his troops used Palestinian civilians as human shields in violation of an Israeli Supreme Court order banning the practice, military officials said. investigators want to determine how much Golan knew, and whether he explicitly authorized the practice. Golan is commander of the army‘s West Bank division. the case was reported in several Israeli newspapers Wednesday. In a landmark 2005 decision, Israel ‘s Supreme Court banned the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields in general, and specifically outlawed taking Palestinian civilians on searches. Since the Supreme Court decision, Palestinians have accused the army of continuing the practice, but proof was elusive spokeswoman for the Israeli human rights group B‘Tselem, said the new reports that the investigation is targeting senior officers was an encouraging sign the army is taking the matter seriously. complaints have been denied or dismissed

British MP: Israel employed Nazi tactics in Lebanon

Turner said, “There had been plenty of words of condemnation of suicide bombers, but few on the Israeli attacks in Gaza, in particular the attacks on civilian installations.”

clipped from www.ynetnews.com British MP Andrew Turner of the Conservative Party “Those were the tactics of the Nazis in 1939 and 1940 – attacking fleeing civilians from the air,” “Human Rights Watch condemns both sides pretty unequivocally for breaches of international law and of internationally recognized human rights. It condemns Hizbullah for taking hostage and using the soldiers as pawns to negotiate the release of prisoners held in Israel…and it condemns Israel over the lawlessness of its attacks on south Lebanon, for the extraordinarily high level of civilian casualties that followed. asked in response: “Is the honorable gentleman seriously comparing Israel’s defending itself to the genocide of the Holocaust? “What a stupid intervention; of course I’m not comparing it to the Holocaust; if the honourable lady was a little more careful in the way in which she listened to other honourable members instead of parading her prejudices, she would have heard what I said, which was that Israel attacked fleeing civilians;

Marwahin: Lest we forget the innocent children

Human Rights Watch states that "war crimes" include "making the civilian population or individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities the object of attack".

clipped from news.independent.co.uk UNIFIL, which turned the refugees of Marwahin away on 15 July, stated that when they were removing the children's bodies, their soldiers came under fire. Human Rights Watch is still investigating the killings of civilians at Marwahin and other locations and wrote of them before the war ended. "The Israeli military," it said in its initial report, "did not follow its orders [to civilians] to evacuate with the creation of safe passage routes, and on a daily basis Israeli warplanes and helicopters struck civilians in cars who were trying to flee, many with white flags out the windows, a widely accepted sign of civilian status ... On some days, Israeli war planes hit dozens of civilian cars, showing a clear pattern of failing to distinguish between civilian and military objects." International law makes it clear that it is forbidden in any circumstances to carry out direct attacks against civilians and that to do so is a war crime. six of the children were between the ages of one and 10.