Israel's shoot to kill policy FOR CHILDREN
- From: ªk½ü¤jªk¦n <islam-will-replace-collapsing-amerikan-empire@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2010 12:12:27 -0700 (PDT)
Israel's shoot to kill policy FOR CHILDREN
It appears that Israel has recently adopted a state policy of
selectively killing Palestinian children to pacify the Occupied
Territories. Thirty nine years of beating them up have not quieted
down the natives. Assassinating their leaders has not worked.
Destroying their economy, education system and infrastructure has only
made matters worse. Taking their best land and settling them with
marauding fundamentalists seems only to have hardened their resolve to
stay. So now, it is infanticide.
Not guilty. The Israeli captain who emptied his rifle into a
Palestinain schoolgirl
Chris McGreal in Jerusalem
Guardian
An Israeli army officer who fired the entire magazine of his automatic
rifle into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl and then said he would have
done the same even if she had been three years old was acquitted on
all charges by a military court yesterday.
The soldier, who has only been identified as "Captain R", was charged
with relatively minor offences for the killing of Iman al-Hams who was
shot 17 times as she ventured near an Israeli army post near Rafah
refugee camp in Gaza a year ago.
The manner of Iman's killing, and the revelation of a tape recording
in which the captain is warned that she was just a child who was
"scared to death", made the shooting one of the most controversial
since the Palestinian intifada erupted five years ago even though
hundreds of other children have also died.
After the verdict, Iman's father, Samir al-Hams, said the army never
intended to hold the soldier accountable.
"They did not charge him with Iman's murder, only with minor offences,
and now they say he is innocent of those even though he shot my
daughter so many times," he said. "This was the cold-blooded murder of
a girl. The soldier murdered her once and the court has murdered her
again. What is the message? They are telling their soldiers to kill
Palestinian children."
The military court cleared the soldier of illegal use of his weapon,
conduct unbecoming an officer and perverting the course of justice by
asking soldiers under his command to alter their accounts of the
incident.
Capt R's lawyers argued that the "confirmation of the kill" after a
suspect is shot was a standard Israeli military practice to eliminate
terrorist threats.
Following the verdict, Capt R burst into tears, turned to the public
benches and said: "I told you I was innocent."
The army's official account said that Iman was shot for crossing into
a security zone carrying her schoolbag which soldiers feared might
contain a bomb. It is still not known why the girl ventured into the
area but witnesses described her as at least 100 yards from the
military post which was in any case well protected.
A recording of radio exchanges between Capt R and his troops obtained
by Israeli television revealed that from the beginning soldiers
identified Iman as a child.
In the recording, a soldier in a watchtower radioed a colleague in the
army post's operations room and describes Iman as "a little girl" who
was "scared to death". After soldiers first opened fire, she dropped
her schoolbag which was then hit by several bullets establishing that
it did not contain explosive. At that point she was no longer carrying
the bag and, the tape revealed, was heading away from the army post
when she was shot.
Although the military speculated that Iman might have been trying to
"lure" the soldiers out of their base so they could be attacked by
accomplices, Capt R made the decision to lead some of his troops into
the open. Shortly afterwards he can be heard on the recording saying
that he has shot the girl and, believing her dead, then "confirmed the
kill".
"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," he said.
Palestinian witnesses said they saw the captain shoot Iman twice in
the head, walk away, turn back and fire a stream of bullets into her
body.
On the tape, Capt R then "clarifies" to the soldiers under his command
why he killed Iman: "This is commander. Anything that's mobile, that
moves in the security zone, even if it's a three-year-old, needs to be
killed."
At no point did the Israeli troops come under attack.
The prosecution case was damaged when a soldier who initially said he
had seen Capt R point his weapon at the girl's body and open fire
later told the court he had fabricated the story.
Capt R claimed that he had not fired the shots at the girl but near
her. However, Dr Mohammed al-Hams, who inspected the child's body at
Rafah hospital, counted numerous wounds. "She has at least 17 bullets
in several parts of the body, all along the chest, hands, arms, legs,"
he told the Guardian shortly afterwards. "The bullets were large and
shot from a close distance. The most serious injuries were to her
head. She had three bullets in the head. One bullet was shot from the
right side of the face beside the ear. It had a big impact on the
whole face."
The army's initial investigation concluded that the captain had "not
acted unethically". But after some of the soldiers under his command
went to the Israeli press to give a different version, the military
police launched a separate investigation after which he was charged.
The following is a recording of a three-way conversation that took
place between a soldier in a watchtower, an army operations room and
Capt R, who shot the girl
From the watchtower "It's a little girl. She's running defensivelyeastward." "Are we talking about a girl under the age of 10?" "A girl
about 10, she's behind the embankment, scared to death." "I think that
one of the positions took her out." "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."
From the operations room "Are we talking about a girl under the age of10?"
Watchtower "A girl about 10, she's behind the embankment, scared to
death."
A few minutes later, Iman is shot from one of the army posts
Watchtower "I think that one of the positions took her out."
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."
Capt R 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."
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