Israel airstrike kills 5

[idontwantaname]

what if this was your brother or son killed by an israeli air strike?

-------------------------------

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060306/ts_nm/mideast_dc

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli air strike killed two Islamic Jihad militants and three other people in the Gaza Strip on Monday, including an eight-year-old boy, Palestinian medics and witnesses said.

The Israeli army confirmed the strike on a car carrying the two militants, which came on the eve of formal campaigning for Israel's elections on March 28 and after interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed to use an "iron fist" against militants.

"The war on terror will be conducted in full strength as it is being conducted, in every corner, in every place in the Gaza Strip and everywhere else," Olmert said in an recorded interview aired on Monday on a talk show on Israel's Channel 2 television.

<snip>

The two Islamic Jihad militants were killed when a missile struck their car in northern Gaza, from where militants have regularly fired makeshift rockets into Israel.

Witnesses said the eight-year-old boy was killed while standing close to the car. Two others, teenaged boys aged 14 and 15, also died, a hospital official said.

An Israeli military source said one of the militants killed was involved in rocket attacks against Israel.

<snip>

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

1. But they are not terrorists, because.... ?

Oh yeah, they use airplanes.

[Behind the Aegis]

5. That is not the reason...

[DELUSIONAL]

2. If the 8 year old child was Israeli -- his name would be

given and then we would be told everything about this wonderful child.

Was the 8 year old Palestinian child any less wonderful -- we will never know any more about him.

The two faced reporting about the victims is disgusting.

[Tom Joad]

3. Children of a lesser god?

Tom Hurndall, as many remember, died while trying to save Gaza children in what amounts to a free-fire zone.

Jocelyn Hurndall, Tom's mother, asked if Prime Minister Blair, who supports Israeli policies, if he considered Palestinian "children of a lesser god?"

So I have questions to ask of Tony Blair. Does he regard the children of Palestine as children of a lesser god? Does he accept that such inaction is tantamount to complicity in the process of destroying any peace initiative in the Middle East? Mr Blair, you know now that an Israeli soldier has confessed to shooting in cold blood an unarmed British citizen who was trying to shepherd children away to safety. When will you be ready to openly condemn these actions?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1119995,00.html

One might want to consider that question when pondering that Israel is detaining, and holding in deplorable conditions, over 200 children that it has arrested in the last 2 months.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=124&topic_id=118217&mesg_id=118217

[DELUSIONAL]

8. Children of a lesser god! Yes that does explain a lot.

Thanks for this reference.

[Behind the Aegis]

6. Try again.

The report was published before names were released....if you check in this very thread, you will see the names of those killed.

[Tom Joad]

11. Isn't that nice! We have the names of some of the children

killed by the Israeli military.
So humane.

[Tom Joad]

12. Here are all the names.....

Palestinian and Israeli. Though, sadly, new ones need to be added.

http://www.rememberthesechildren.org

[Violet_Crumble]

4. IAF probe: Civilians spotted too late to divert missiles in Gaza strike

The Israel Air Force missile strike Monday in Gaza City that killed three Palestinian civilians and two militants was not a result of human or technical error, according to the results of a preliminary IAF probe released Tuesday.

About 5:30 P.M. on Monday, IAF aircraft fired two missiles at an ice-cream van in which senior Islamic Jihad militants Munir Sukar and Ashraf Shaluf were traveling. According to the security services, Sukar is responsible for numerous Qassam launches at Israel, as well as an attempt to send a suicide bomber to Jerusalem last month, while Shaluf is also a Jihad operative.

However, the strike also killed Raad Al-Batash, 8, Mahmoud Al-Batash, 15, and Ahmed A-Susi, 24, who were nearby when the missiles hit. Sumiyya Al-Batch, the mother of Raad and Mahmoud, suffered light wounds. Eight other passers-by were also wounded, and Sukar's aunt, who lives nearby, died of a heart attack apparently brought on by the strike.

According to the probe, an IAF observation unit identified the target vehicle as it was traveling. However, the spotters only saw that the vehicle was approaching a crowd of civilians when it was too late.

Military sources said that by the time the crowd was identified, it was already too late to divert the two missiles from their courses.

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/691265.html

[DELUSIONAL]

9. They're using the same lie masters as bushie.

[Poll_Blind]

10. Oh Israel, who fires missiles at ICE CREAM trucks then feigns surprise...

...when children are killed. That's the current government of Israel in a nutshell.

PB

[Behind the Aegis]

7. your question...

I am guessing most, not all, would feel the same if he was their son or brother killed in a pizza parlor, disco, or balcony.

[president4aday]

13. Trespassing on Palestinian land... Bad idea.

[Behind the Aegis]

14. .

:eyes:

[Englander]

15. From B'Tselem;

7 March 2006: Targeted Killing in Gaza: Grave Suspicion of a War Crime

The Israeli air force launched a missile yesterday afternoon into a residential neighborhood in the north of Gaza City, killing five Palestinians. Two of those killed were the targets of the attack, and were suspected by Israel of firing Qassam rockets at Israeli towns. Three bystanders, all of them minors, were also killed in the attack: brothers Ra'id (age 8) and Mahmoud (age 15) Al-Batash; and Ahmad a-Sweisi (age 14). Nine other bystanders were wounded, one of them critically.

The circumstances of their death raises the grave suspicion that the targeted killing constitutes a disproportionate attack, which is defined as a war crime. B'Tselem requested the Judge Advocate General to order a Military Police investigation into the attack, including the actions of those who carried it out and the role of high ranking officers such as the Chief of Staff and the Air Force Commander.

Legal Analysis

The principle of proportionality constitutes one of the central pillars of international humanitarian law. According to this principle, an attack is forbidden, even when directed against a legitimate military target, if it is known that the attack is liable to result in injury to civilians that is disproportionate to the military benefit anticipated from the attack. The burden of proof that the anticipated military benefit was so great as to justify harm to civilians rests on those carrying out the attack. Breach of the principle of proportionality is defined in humanitarian law as a war crime, for which the perpetrators bear personal criminal responsibility.

The targeting killing was carried out in the afternoon in the heart of a densely populated urban neighborhood (the a-Tufah neighborhood in northern Gaza City). Given the time and place chosen for the attack, the planners should have known that it was liable to injure many innocent civilians. Despite the extensive harm to civilians resulting from yesterday's attack, Israel has once again failed to provide any evidence regarding the necessity of the action or the lack of alternates that would entail lesser harm to civilians. These facts create a grave suspicion that yesterday's attack was disproportionate and thus constitutes a war crime.

http://www.btselem.org/English/Firearms/20060307_Gaza_Assassination.asp

[Scurrilous]

16. Too used to death

<snip>

"Raad al-Batash, 8, Mahmoud al-Batash, 15, and a third boy, Ahmed a-Susi, were killed in an air force strike in the Gaza Strip on March 6 that had targeted two wanted Islamic Jihad members. The mother of one of the boys and another seven passers-by were injured in the attack.

My outcry is not directed at the commander of the air force, or the chief of staff, or even the defense minister, and certainly not the acting prime minister - all of them proponents of the targeting killings, which frequently go somewhat astray and hit innocent Palestinian passers-by. And thereafter, they softly utter an apology in the name of the surprise that the residents dared to walk around their neighborhoods and go shopping there.

My outcry is directed at my people, parents, sons and daughters, to the leaders of the parties - and also to the leaders of the Zionist left-wing - who are not pained by the pointless killing (as if there were purposeful killing) of boys and girls, in whose eyes fear is visible and for whom the alternative to the hell and killing and roadblocks is "Paradise Now."

Our political agenda should have changed, but talented journalists are investing their time and energy in uncovering new-old nests of corruption, and politicians and MKs are busy investigating the bandage on MK Effi Eitam's head and the cast on the arm of MK Aryeh Eldad. Dead children do not even make them blink before the television cameras. The demand to raise the minimum wage is a just and fitting demand, but inferior in comparison to the lives of children in Gaza that have been cut short. And even the announcement of so worthy and just an organization as Peace Now, to mark one year since the release of Attorney Talia Sassoon's report on illegal outposts, should have made way for an obituary for the children killed during IDF operations over the last few months."

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