http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1516362,00.html Itwas the shooting of Asma Mughayar that swept away any lingering doubtsI had about how it is the Israeli army kills so many Palestinianchildren and civilians. Asma,16, and her younger brother, Ahmad, were collecting laundry from theroof of their home in the south of the Gaza Strip in May last year whenthey were felled by an Israeli army sniper. Neither child was armed orthreatening the soldier, who fired unseen through a hole punched in thewall of a neighbouring block of flats.
Thearmy said the two were blown up by a Palestinian bomb planted to killsoldiers. The corpses offered a different account. In Rafah’s morgue,Asma lay with a single bullet hole through her temple; her 13-year-oldbrother had a lone shot to his forehead. There were no other injuries,certainly none consistent with a blast.
Confrontedwith this, the army changed its account and claimed the pair werekilled by a Palestinian, though there was persuasive evidence pointingto the Israeli sniper’s nest. What the military did not do was ask itssoldiers why they gave a false account of the deaths or speak to thechildren’s parents or any other witnesses.
Whenreporters pressed the issue, the army promised a full investigation,but a few weeks later it was quietly dropped. This has become the normin a military that appears to value protecting itself fromaccountability more than living up to its claim to be the “most moralarmy in the world”.
AsTom Hurndall’s parents noted yesterday after the conviction of anIsraeli sergeant for the manslaughter of their son, the soldier was puton trial only because the British family had the resources to bringpressure to bear. But there has been no justice for the parents ofhundreds of Palestinian children killed by Israeli soldiers.
Accordingto the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, the army has killed 1,722Palestinian civilians – more than one-third of them minors – as well as1,519 combatants, since the intifada began nearly five years ago; thecomparable Israeli figures are 658 civilians killed – 17% minors -along with 309 military. The army has investigated just 90 Palestiniandeaths, usually under outside pressure. Seven soldiers have beenconvicted: three for manslaughter, none for murder.
Lastmonth, a military court sentenced a soldier to 20 months in prison forshooting dead a Palestinian man as he adjusted his TV aerial, thelongest sentence yet for killing a civilian, and less than Israeliconscientious objectors have got for refusing to serve in the army.
B’Tselemargues that a lack of accountability and rules of engagement that”encourage a trigger-happy attitude among soldiers” have created a”culture of impunity” – a view backed by the New York-based HumanRights Watch, which last week described many army investigations ofcivilian killings as a “sham … that encourages soldiers to think theycan literally get away with murder”.
Insouthern Gaza, the killings take place in a climate that amounts to aform of terror against the population. Random fire into Rafah and KhanYunis has claimed hundreds of lives, including five children shot asthey sat at their school desks. Many others have died when the snipersmust have known who was in their sights – children playing football,sitting outside home, walking back from school. Almost always”investigations” amount to asking the soldier who pulled the triggerwhat happened – often they claim there was a gun battle when there wasnone – and presenting it as fact.
Themilitary police launched an investigation into the death of Imanal-Hams last October only after soldiers went public about thecircumstances in which their commander emptied his gun into the12-year-old. He was recorded telling his men that the girl should bekilled even if she were three.
ColonelPinhas Zuaretz was commander in southern Gaza two years ago when Iasked him about the scale of the killing. The colonel, who rewrote therules of engagement to permit soldiers to shoot children as young as14, acknowledged that official versions of several killings were wrong,but justified the tactics as the price of the struggle for survivalagainst a second Holocaust.
Perhapsthat view was shared by the soldier who shot dead three 15-year-oldboys, Hassan Abu Zeid, Ashraf Mousa and Khaled Ghanem, as theyapproached the fortified border between Gaza and Egypt in April. Themilitary said the teenagers were weapons smugglers and therefore”terrorists”, and that the soldier shot them in the legs and onlykilled them when they failed to stop.
Theaccount was a fabrication. The teenagers were in a “forbidden zone” butkicking a ball. Their corpses showed no evidence of wounds to disablethem, only single high-calibre shots to the head or back. The armyquietly admitted as much – but there would be no investigation.