Parallel lives

Dalia Karpel, Haaretz Magazine excerpts, 06/10/07. Some junior commanders encouraged the brutality and even endorsed it. "After two months in Rafah a [new] commanding officer arrived ... So we do a first patrol with him. It's 6 A.M., Rafah is under curfew, there isn't so much as a dog in the streets. Only a little boy of four playing in the sand. He is building a castle in his yard. He [the officer] suddenly starts running and we all run with him. He was from the combat engineers. We all run with him. He grabbed the boy. Nufar, I am a degenerate if I am not telling you the truth. He broke his hand here at the wrist. Broke his hand at the wrist, broke his leg here. And started to stomp on his stomach, three times, and left. We are all there, jaws dropping, looking at him in shock ... The next day I go out with him on another patrol, and the soldiers are already starting to do the same thing."

There were some tough soldiers who developed an ideology holding that even minor events necessitated a brutal response. "A 3-year-old kid, he can't throw, he can't hurt you no matter what he does, but a kid of 19 can. With women I have no problem. With women, one threw a clog at me and I kicked her here [pointing to the crotch], I broke everything there. She can't have children. Next time she won't throw clogs at me. When one of them [a woman] spat at me I gave her the rifle butt in the face. She doesn't have what to spit with anymore."

An incident that fomented a crisis began when a squad commander from the hard-hearted group maltreated three bound teenagers. A soldier of conscience summoned another squad commander who was a paramedic. He told Yishai-Karin that by the time help arrived the three Palestinian boys were already "completely covered with blood, their clothes were saturated with blood and they were shaking with fear. Their hands were tied and they were afraid to move, they were on their knees."

"Ash'har Company, which was drafted before us, was a deviant, extreme unit at the human level. The absence of supervision from the commanding level left its mark on them, and things they did before we arrived were extreme. Take the story about the boy and the kick to the crotch, for example".

The reality of the situation and the fraternity of fighters prompted some of them to cover up for their friends, even if they stole from homes where they conducted searches or sexually harassed or provoked Arab women. Some of the soldiers were singled out in the study as "prone to being led" - that is, they were swept up in the wake of their officers and buddies - and there were some who had never lifted a hand against anyone before their army service. "The moment the red line is broken, it is not just broken, it is smashed to smithereens, and from that moment everything is permitted," one soldier testified.

His mother said last week: "He matured and changed in the army. I sent a nice kibbutznik and I got back an Arab-hater."

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'Our job was to hit them'

Mohammed al-Dura lives on

Gideon Levy, Haaretz, 07/10/07. All of these are tasteless questions [of who killed al-Dura] designed to divert attention from the truly important issues: According to data collected by human rights group B'Tselem, Israel is responsible for killing more than 850 Palestinian children and teenagers since al-Dura was killed, including 92 in the past year alone. Last October, we killed 31 children in Gaza. If Israel were really interested in improving its "public relations," it would embrace the al-Dura family instead of all the foolish investigations. It would provide compensation to the family and show the world that it is truly and sincerely sorry about the death of one child. But even if there is some doubt, it is certain that the IDF has killed and is killing children. So this ridiculous focus on who killed al-Dura, a question that will never be resolved, is no more than a tempest in a putrid teapot. There should be a tempest, a great and mighty one, but one focused on an entirely different issue: Why is the IDF continuing to kill children at such a frightening pace, and why doesn't Israel take responsibility for this and compensate the families of those killed? But no one is conducting "investigations" about this. The concern Israel demonstrates for the fate of one Palestinian boy touches the heart: Again, note what a fuss is being made about the case of the killing of Mohammed al-Dura. Our heart is impervious to the fate of other children who have been killed. Just little Mohammed continues to haunt us. But the question of who killed al-Dura is not important. And maybe he is even alive, as some eccentrics claim. Perhaps he committed suicide, as the strange investigations are liable to suggest. All of these are tasteless questions designed to divert attention from the truly important issues: According to data collected by human rights group B'Tselem, Israel is responsible for killing more than 850 Palestinian children and teenagers since al-Dura was killed, including 92 in the past year alone. Last October, we killed 31 children in Gaza. This is what should have raised a storm and not the measurements by the former head of the Israel Defense Forces' Southern Command, Yom Tov Samiyeh, aimed at proving that his soldiers did not kill al-Dura, or the "investigations" by the physicist Nahum Shahaf. In an eccentric obsession, Shahaf has devoted the past years to this affair, after previously having also obtained "amazing material" on the murder of Yitzhak Rabin. Al-Dura refuses to step down from the stage because he has become an icon of the Palestinian struggle and a symbol of Israeli brutality. A thousand Nahum Shahafs will not succeed in blurring the unequivocal fact that a scandalous killing of children is taking place in the territories. Even if the director of the Government Press Office, Danny Seaman, is right in determining that the film made by the reliable and experienced French journalist Charles Enderlin was "staged," and even if he succeeds in clearing Israel from responsibility for this killing, what will we say about the other children who have been killed? That their killing was also "staged?" That the IDF did not kill them through carelessness and contempt for their lives; by being trigger-happy and even acting with premeditation? If Israel were really interested in improving its "public relations," it would embrace the al-Dura family instead of all the foolish investigations. It would provide compensation to the family and show the world that it is truly and sincerely sorry about the death of one child. The question of who killed al-Dura is like the question of what Joseph Trumpeldor mumbled before his death. The myth in both cases is already stronger than any investigation. Al-Dura became a symbol because his killing was documented on videotape. All the other hundreds of children were killed without cameras present, so no one is interested in their fate. If there had been a camera in Bushara Barjis' room in the Jenin refugee camp while she was studying for a pre-matriculation test, we would have a film showing an IDF sniper firing a bullet at her head. If there had been a photographer near Jamal Jabaji from the Askar camp, we would see soldiers emerging from an armored jeep and aiming their weapons at the head of a child who threw stones at them. But these children did not become symbols; there are no stamps bearing their portraits, no streets named after them and no songs composed for them as with al-Dura because they were not filmed at the time of their deaths. Al-Dura became a symbol because every struggle needs a symbol, a shrine for the masses of dead and the anonymous heroes. The assumption that the IDF soldiers firing at Palestinians at the Netzarim junction killed the boy cradled in his father's arms exactly seven years ago is the most reasonable one. As far as we can remember, there has been no other case in which Palestinians fired at the IDF and hit a Palestinian child. But even if there is some doubt, it is certain that the IDF has killed and is killing children. So this ridiculous focus on who killed al-Dura, a question that will never be resolved, is no more than a tempest in a putrid teapot. There should be a tempest, a great and mighty one, but one focused on an entirely different issue: Why is the IDF continuing to kill children at such a frightening pace, and why doesn't Israel take responsibility for this and compensate the families of those killed? But no one is conducting "investigations" about this.

Al Mezan Calls for an Impartial Investigation in the Murder Ad-Dura in 2000

Al Mezan, 04.10.07. The Israeli Government Press Office (GPO) claimed yesterday that the video of the murder of the Muhammad Jamal Al-Dura on 30 September 2000 was staged by a cameraman in Gaza. The scene of the killing of the then 11-year-old boy was one of the most moving scenes ever broadcast during the Al Aqsa Intifada; which had started three days before the incident.

The video shows Ad-Dura and his father trying to take cover behind a concrete block while the father trying to protect his son as the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) opened fire directly at them. The child was killed and the father was moderately injured in this incident. The video shows the child and the father in a desperate situation while neither of them posed any danger on the IOF. The video was broadcast by France 2 TV, and provoked strong condemnation by official and popular levels worldwide at the time.

Based on the GPO's allegations, Israel stripped the credentials of the two journalists who took the footage. The decision was approved, and therefore accepted, by Israel's Prime Minister Office Legal Advisor. The GPO claims that IOF does not bear responsibility for killing the child.

Nevertheless, according to the information and evidences collected by Al Mezan from the field rebut the GPO's allegations. Al Mezan had availed its evidences to an international fact-finding-mission in 2000. The mission encompassed the UN independent expert Professor John Dugard and fifteen experts. Al Mezan invited eyewitnesses and other presented other evidences to the mission, which investigated the perpetration of multiple crimes by IOF in this incident. IOF also targeted an ambulance that tried to help Ad-Dura and his father and killed its driver; 48-year-old Fayiz Saleem Al-Bilbissy.