Re: Israeli officer: I was right to shoot 13-year-old child

From: Riain Y. Barton (riain_at_riain.us)
Date: 11/25/04 

Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 22:03:50 -0500

Amazing how in Israel, there are investigations, and laws and rules, moral
codes, yet they have to deal with an enemy that do not follow any of these
things, and the world remains silent.

=========================

Nov. 24, 2004 21:57 | Updated Nov. 25, 2004 0:32
Analysis: Confirming the kill
By ARIEH O'SULLIVAN

In the IDF there is an expression, "Lo vaditah, lo asitah," (If you didn't
verify it then you didn't do it).

In the complicated environment the IDF finds itself today, it is difficult
to say just whether the scandalous "verifying the kill" court martial going
on now is more than an isolated incident.
Were it not for the disgruntled soldiers in the Givati auxiliary company in
the Gaza Strip, the entire incident may have remained just another unit's
dirty laundry, likely never to see the light of day.

The latest Givati scandal has wracked the army and the state and has pushed
aside reports of IDF successes in preventing terror. It has raised questions
about the very soul of the IDF. Did a combat captain "verify" the death of a
13-year-old Palestinian girl and how much is this behavior prevalent in the
army today?

"The truth is, that every conflict, and in this case, every intefadeh,
brings with it their own troubles," said Brig.-Gen. (res.) Amnon Straschnov,
a former IDF advocate general and retired Tel Aviv District Court judge.

Straschnov said the incident was a "blemish on the combat ethos of the IDF."

"But I wouldn't see this a very wide spread phenomena that has infected all
the IDF units," Straschnov said.

Still, there is a sense that something may be rotten in the IDF, now
entering its fifth year of fighting an urban guerrilla war against the
Palestinian terrorists operating amid innocent civilians.

The discussions of late have dealt mainly with if the captain shot, when he
shot and how much did he shoot. They do not deal with the deeper questions
such as how, according to leaked radio transmissions of the incident; some
soldiers opened fire on a girl even though they know they aren't supposed to
shoot at girls.

"The behavior of the soldiers is problematic," Straschnov said in an
interview on Army radio. "Either some of them made false accusations against
the CO, as he claims and which will be clarified in the court martial, or
they lent a hand to shooting at an innocent girl and kept silent about it.
Then, and only because of some issues they had previously against the CO,
they said what they said. And apparently they didn't tell all of the truth
in the debriefings."

"This isn't as bad as the alleged shooting and verifying the kill of the
girl, but it is certainly a phenomena that the IDF chief of general staff
needs to address when it comes to the credibility of debriefings, which to
my great regret have not proven to be very credible lately," Straschnov
said.

The IDF has proudly spotlighted its purity of arms. The common held belief
is that accusations by the Arabs, often echoed by the world media, that the
army violates this by collective punishments, harming civilians, mistreating
prisoners and even mutilating the bodies of dead terrorists, are just plain
defamation against Israel.

Purity is difficult to preserve, particularly when your enemy follows a
different set of rules.

The IDF has followed a strict moral code and even indirect violation from it
causes a strong public outcry. This was seen in the case of Sabra and
Chatilla, when the IDF command allowed Christian Phalangist militiamen into
the Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut in 1982 who subsequently massacred
hundreds of innocent people.

The IDF code of ethics actually spells out when one can shoot an enemy and
when it would be considered illegal to shoot them.

The term "verifying the kill," has been twisted over the years by soldiers
to mean a confirmation that their duty was accomplished and not necessary
executing anyone.

"It is a slang expression by the soldiers who don't truly understand what
they are supposed to do when their lives are in danger," said Prof. Assa
Kasher, who drafted the IDF code of ethics.
He said that shooting one's enemy is an objective issue defined by the level
of danger they present and it is not a matter of intuition.
"Sometimes you have to shoot to kill. But you when a man is lying down
wounded you don't do actions to be on the safe side, you do actions
according one's consideration if there is danger or not," Kasher said.

"There is no such thing as plugging two more bullets into someone's head to
be on the safe side. There is no ethical, moral or legal permission to do
this," Kasher said.

The modern Givati Brigade has borne the brunt of the conflict with the
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. They have seen their comrades blown to bits
in the Zeitun refugee camp and then Palestinians parading around in a frenzy
with their body parts. This, it turns out, has been the experience of the
brigade since the beginning of the state.

Col. (ret.) Yitzhak Pundak, one of the founders of the Givati brigade and
commander of the 53rd battalion in the War of Independence, said the
phenomenon of "verifying the kill" was always known in war. But he was
adamant that it never happened in his battalion.

"Every time the Arabs would come upon one of our wounded men they would kill
them," Pundak said. "One time, we came upon four of our soldiers left behind
and they had been decapitated. We later saw that the Arabs had stuck their
heads on stakes in the city of Majdal (Ashkelon)."

"It's hard for a soldier to remain moral after seeing such things, but we
did," Pundak said. "There were no IDF rules and we didn't have the media or
lawyers around us back then. Still, I can assure you that none in my unit
broke the rules of war."

"This episode with the Gavati soldiers bothers me. I think that this thing
needs to be rooted out. I can understand the fighters today and the way they
are being eroded and the risk of deviating from normality."

"The IDF needs to be sacred. They can't use their weapons like the Arabs do.
This verifying the kill, if it indeed happened, is forbidden," he said.

"torresD" <torresd30@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Crbpd.767$Ua.184@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net...
| Israeli officer: I was right to shoot 13-year-old child
| http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1358173,00.html
| Israeli officer: I was right to shoot 13-year-old child
|
| Radio exchange contradicts army version of Gaza killing
|
| Chris McGreal in Jerusalem
| Wednesday November 24, 2004
| The Guardian
|
| An Israeli army officer who repeatedly
| shot a 13-year-old Palestinian girl in
| Gaza dismissed a warning from another
| soldier that she was a child by saying
| he would have killed her even if she
| was three years old.
|
| The officer,
| identified by the army only as Captain R,
| was charged this week with illegal use
| of his weapon, conduct unbecoming an officer
| and other relatively minor infractions after
| emptying all 10 bullets from his gun's magazine
| into Iman al-Hams when she walked into a
| "security area" on the edge of Rafah
| refugee camp last month.
|
| A tape recording of radio exchanges
| between soldiers involved in the incident,
| played on Israeli television,
|
| contradicts the army's account of
| the events and appears to show that
| the captain shot the girl in cold blood.
|
| The official account claimed that Iman
| was shot as she walked towards an army
| post with her schoolbag because soldiers
| feared she was carrying a bomb.
|
| But the tape recording of the radio
| conversation between soldiers at the
| scene reveals that,
|
| from the beginning,
|
| she was identified as a child and
| at no point was a bomb spoken about
| nor was she described as a threat.
|
| Iman was also at least 100 yards from any soldier.
|
| Instead, the tape shows that the soldiers
| swiftly identified her as a "girl of about
| 10" who was "scared to death".
|
| The tape also reveals that the
| soldiers said Iman was headed eastwards,
| away from the army post and back into
| the refugee camp, when she was shot.
|
| At that point,
|
| Captain R took the unusual
| decision to leave the post in
| pursuit of the girl.
|
| He shot her dead and then
| "confirmed the kill" by
| emptying his magazine into
| her body.
|
|
| The tape recording is of a three-way
| conversation between the army watchtower,
| the army post's operations room and the
| captain, who was a company commander.
|
| The soldier in the watchtower radioed
| his colleagues after he saw Iman:
|
| "It's a little girl.
| She's running defensively eastward."
|
| Operations room:
| "Are we talking about a girl under the age of 10?"
|
| Watchtower:
| "A girl of about 10, she's behind
| the embankment, scared to death."
|
| A few minutes later,
| Iman is shot in the leg
| from one of the army posts.
|
| The watchtower:
| "I think that one of the positions took her out."
|
| The company commander then moves
| in as Iman lies wounded and helpless.
|
| Captain R:
|
| "I and another soldier ...
| are going in a little nearer,
| forward, to confirm the kill ...
|
| Receive a situation report.
| We fired and killed her ...
| I also confirmed the kill. Over."
|
| Witnesses described how the
| captain shot Iman twice in the head,
| walked away, turned back and fired a
| stream of bullets into her body.
|
| Doctors at Rafah's hospital said
| she had been shot at least 17 times.
|
| On the tape, the company commander
| then "clarifies" why he killed Iman:
|
| "This is commander.
|
| Anything that's mobile,
| that moves in the zone,
| even if it's a three-year-old,
| needs to be killed. Over."
|
| The army's original account of the
| killing said that the soldiers only
| identified Iman as a child after she
| was first shot.
|
| But the tape shows that they were
| aware just how young the small,
| slight girl was before any shots were fired.
|
| The case came to light after soldiers
| under the command of Captain R went to
| an Israeli newspaper to accuse the
| army of covering up the circumstances
| of the killing.
|
| A subsequent investigation by the
| officer responsible for the Gaza strip,
| Major General Dan Harel,
|
| concluded that the captain
| had "not acted unethically".
|
| However,
| the military police
| launched an investigation,
| which resulted in charges
| against the unit commander.
|
| Iman's parents have accused the army
| of whitewashing the affair by filing
| minor charges against Captain R.
|
| They want him prosecuted for murder.
|
| Record of a shooting
|
| Watchtower
| 'It's a little girl.
| She's running defensively eastward'
|
| Operations room
| 'Are we talking about a girl under the age of 10?'
| Watchtower
| 'A girl of about 10,
| she's behind the embankment, scared to death'
|
| Captain R (after killing the girl)
| 'Anything moving in the zone,
| even a three-year-old, needs to be killed'
|
|
|
|
|
|
|

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