Israel admits it used phosphorus weapons

The Israeli government has admitted that it used controversial phosphorus weapons in its attacks against targets during its month long war in Lebanon this summer.
The chemical can be used in shells, missiles and grenades and causes horrific burning when it comes into contact with human flesh.
White phosphorus (WP) weapons are not forbidden by international law but some human rights groups believe they should be re-classified as chemical weapons and banned.
The Israeli admission was made by the cabinet minister, Jacob Edery, who was questioned on the subject by Zahava Gal-On, a member of the Knesset.
Mr Edery told Ms Gal-On: "The IDF [Israel Defence Force] holds phosphorus munitions in different forms. The IDF made use of phosphorus shells during the war against Hizbullah in attacks against military targets in open ground."
Ms Gal-On said that her original question to the government related to suspicions that Israel has been using experimental weapons in Gaza so she was surprised when she was offered a confirmation that Israel had used phosphorus weapons in Lebanon. "My original question was about the use of Dime [dense inert metal explosives] weapons by Israel in Gaza but instead I was given the answer to a different question," she said. "The use of phosphorus weapons in Lebanon is shocking and unacceptable."
Mr Edery said that the Israeli army uses phosphorus weapons according to the rules of international law. However, there have been numerous reports that Israeli phosphorus munitions injured and killed civilians in Lebanon.
The war began on July 12 when Hizbullah abducted two Israeli soldiers from the Israel-Lebanon border. Israeli forces entered Lebanon in pursuit and launched air strikes on Lebanon. Hizbullah then began firing rockets into northern Israel.
Throughout the war, Israel was accused of using controversial weapons, including WP and cluster munitions against civilian targets. Both sides were accused of war crimes in their attacks on civilians by the human rights group, Human Rights Watch.
Unexploded cluster bombs in Lebanon have regularly killed and maimed civilians since the end of the war. Rami Ali Hussein Shibly, 12, was killed and his nine-year-old brother brother, Khodr, injured yesterday by a cluster bomb as they picked olives in Halta. He was 21st person to be killed by the bomblets since the fighting ended.
WP is used by armies for producing smoke screens and as an incendiary. The phosphorus ignites on contact with air and gives off a thick smoke. If the chemical touches skin it will continue to burn until it reaches the bone unless deprived of oxygen.
Many soldiers believe that white phosphorous grenades are more effective in clearing buildings than those that use high explosive because they are more likely to disable the targets.
Amir Peretz, the Israeli defence minister said yesterday that Israel would continue to carry out reconnaissance flights over Lebanon because Hizbullah continues to smuggle arms from Syria. The United Nations has criticised Israel for its continued violations of Lebanese air space


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/oct/23/israel

Army Bombards Gaza, One Resident Wounded

The Israeli Air Force bombarded on Wednesday night after midnight several areas in the Gaza Strip leading to excessive damage; at least one resident was injured.
Three consecutive air strikes were carried out against the “tunnels area” along the Gaza-Egypt border, in Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.

At first, the Air force fired several missiles at a siege-busting tunnel in Yibna refugee camp, in Rafah.

Shortly afterwards, the Air Force carried out two consecutive air strikes targeting areas near Salah ed-Deen Gate and al-Barazil neighborhood in Rafah. One resident was wounded and was moved to Abu Youssef Al Najjar Hospital, in Rafah.

The third attack was carried out when the Air Force fired at least one missile at an open area, east of al-Zeitoun neighborhood, south of Gaza city; damage was reported, no injuries.

On Wednesday at dawn, Israeli soldiers invaded several areas in the occupied West Bank, broke into and searched several homes and kidnapped three residents from the central West Bank city of Ramallah, and from Jenin, in the northern part of the West Bank.

Soldiers also installed several roadblocks and searched dozens of vehicles while inspecting the ID card of the drivers and the passengers.

http://www.imemc.org/article/61016?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Encircled by enemies again?

prime minister of Israel’s hawkish coalition government, makes no secret of his queasiness about Egypt’s upheaval and his fear that the peace treaty with Israel’s giant Arab neighbour could unravel after 32 years. The prospect of an Egyptian government that included the Muslim Brotherhood, let alone one that were led by it, plainly gives him the creeps. For one thing, it might open the Egyptian border with Gaza (see article), so strengthening the Brothers’ Palestinian offshoot, Hamas, whose charter calls for the Jewish state’s destruction. People close to Mr Netanyahu mutter darkly about the “Hamas-isation” of Egypt, a possibility that fills most Israelis, not just on the right, with dread. “Half of the Palestinian people have already been taken over by Iran,” says Israel’s prime minister, with barely a hint of conscious hyperbole.

The Egyptian upset is heightening a sense of encirclement that has not been felt so acutely by Israelis in decades. In Lebanon to the north, a pro-Western prime minister has recently been displaced by one backed by Hizbullah, the Shia party-cum-militia that is armed and sponsored by Iran. To the north-east, Syria, also on friendly terms with Iran, seems resolute in its support for Hamas. Meanwhile Iran itself, Israel’s biggest bugbear in the wider region and governed by a mercurial president fired with righteous anger towards Israel, moves steadily towards getting a nuclear weapon.

Perhaps even more worrying for Israel is a rising fear that on its eastern flank the ruling monarchy in Jordan, the only Arab country bar Egypt that has a formal treaty with the Jewish state, is being shaken by an assortment of Islamists, tribal leaders, Palestinians (who make up a good half of Jordan’s people), disgruntled former security men and a middle class irritated by the royal family’s perceived extravagance.

In the past year relations with Turkey, once a rare friend of Israel in the Muslim world, have gone from cool to icy. In the words of one of Mr Netanyahu’s colleagues, Israel is surrounded by a “poisonous crescent”. “We are in the midst of a regional earthquake,” says one of his ministers, clearly horrified by its possible reverberations.

Meanwhile, peace talks with the Palestinians have broken down, apparently irretrievably. The chances of their revival during Mr Netanyahu’s term in office, which has two years to run, seem negligible. Mr Netanyahu roundly blames the Palestinians for their supposed intransigence, an analysis not shared by American or European mediators and monitors, who castigate Israel’s government for refusing to freeze the building or expanding of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the main bit of a future Palestinian state.

Mr Netanyahu lays particular stress on Israel’s claimed need, if a Palestinian state were to emerge on the West Bank, to retain a military presence there; neutral foreign forces, provided by NATO, as suggested in previous negotiations, would not suffice. “What will prevent infiltration through the Jordan Valley?” he asks. “It requires an Israeli presence to prevent a takeover by Iran’s proxies.” Ministers in Israel’s ruling coalition repeatedly raise the possibility that Hamas might one day oust Mr Abbas’s milder Palestinian party. Some argue that Mr Abbas’s peace talk is a tactical ploy. “A peace treaty does not itself guarantee peace,” warns Mr Netanyahu bleakly. With such suspicions to the fore of his thinking, it is hard to see how a deal based necessarily on mutual trust could ever be struck.

Israel’s centrist opposition leader, Tzipi Livni insists that she came close to sealing a peace deal in 2008 with the Palestinians when she was foreign minister in the government replaced by Mr Netanyahu’s coalition. She excoriates what she sees as Mr Netanyahu’s hawkish ineptitude and his apparent belief that Israel will always be surrounded by an army of enemies infused with a murderous anti-Semitism.

As if Israel’s predicament in a region that may soon become more hostile is not bad enough, two more fears are nagging away. Mr Netanyahu and his colleagues are plainly discomfited by what they see as a burgeoning campaign, especially in the West, to erode Israel’s legitimacy. They cite what they deem unfair attitudes over such issues as the Turkish flotilla Israel stopped from sailing to Gaza, killing nine Turks in so doing, and the UN’s Goldstone report critical of Israel’s war in Gaza in 2009. “We are being denied our legitimate right to self-defence,” sighs one of them. Israel’s growing isolation in forums such as the UN is a gnawing worry. “If we are thrown to the wolves, we have a problem,” says a minister.

Source : http://www.economist.com/node/18186996

4.5 Million Orphans in Iraq: Protests Over Food and Shelter

Orphans join Iraq protests over food, shelter. Orphans join protests in Iraq to call for a better standard of living. Deborah Lutterbeck reports.

BAGHDAD — Fadel Mohammad Ra'ad, 10, is one of thousands of children who have lost their parents to the endless violence that has been gripping Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion.

"My parents were killed in an explosion at the center of Baghdad last year, leaving me and my sister to no one," the child told IslamOnline.net in a Baghdad orphanage. "I have relatives but all of them have refused to take us in," he added choking at the memory. "We were forced to work to survive."

Children, like many other civilians, are the silent victims of violence in war-torn Iraq. "Violence in Iraq has vast characteristics. Sectarian violence, resistance against US troops, traditional behaviors and the fight against the hungry," explains Haydar Hassan Kareem, a sociologist.

The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs estimate that around 4,5 million children are orphans. Nearly 70 percent of them lost their parents since the invasion and the ensuing violence. From the total number, around 600,000 children are living in the streets without a house or food to survive. Only 700 children are living in the 18 orphanages existing in the country, lacking their most essential needs.

"Unfortunately the budget allocated to projects that help street children and orphans is decreasing day in and day out," notes an Iraqi Red Crescent employee refusing to give his name. "Worse still, almost no NGO is dedicating itself to this group of kids who are subject to trafficking and sexual abuses in the streets."


http://tv.globalresearch.ca/2011/02/45-million-orphans-iraq-protests-over-food-and-shelter

Peace process interrupted by Israeli bulldozers - East Jerusalem

Israeli bulldozers have destroyed six buildings in occupied East Jerusalem, resuming the demolition of Palestinian property after a halt aimed at encouraging peace talks, provoking Palestinian anger and US "concern".
Tuesday's demolitions were the first since a halt in October aimed at encouraging so-called peace talks, and Palestinians said they proved the Israeli government was not committed to the negotiations. The demolitions come just a week after Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, pledged to take "concrete steps that could be done now - in the coming days, in the coming weeks - to move the peace process further along in a very robust way" after meeting Barack Obama, the US president, at the White House.
Obama had called for direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians to be restarted before the partial suspension on the construction of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land expires in September.
"My hope is that once direct talks have begun, well before the moratorium [on settlements] has expired, that that will create a climate in which everybody feels a greater investment in success," Obama had said last Tuesday, adding that he hoped mutual confidence-building moves would pave the way to negotiations.
The White House meeting had come as Obama and Netanyahu tried to downplay recent tensions between their countries over Israel's continuing construction of settlements, which is illegal under international law.
US opposes 'unilateral actions'
But on Tuesday the latest demolitions threatened to turn ties frosty again, with the US joining the EU and UN in expressing concern over them.
PJ Crowley, a spokesman for the US state department, urged Israel to refrain from actions that could undermine negotiations with Palestinian leaders.
"Obviously we are concerned about reports today of a number of buildings in East Jerusalem being demolished," he said at a news briefing on Tuesday.
"The US has made it clear that it disagrees with some government of Israel actions in Jerusalem that affect Palestinians in areas such as housing, including home demolitions, and has urged all parties to avoid actions that could undermine trust.
"We continue to oppose and we will make clear to the government of Israel that we oppose unilateral actions that prejudge negotiations.
"The status of Jerusalem and all other permanent status issues must be resolved by the parties through negotiations," he said.
Volatile issue
Jerusalem demolitions are a volatile issue because of conflicting Israeli and Palestinian claims to the city's eastern sector.
Israel, which captured the sector in the 1967 Middle East war, sees it as part of its capital city, while Palestinians want it returned for the capital of their future state.
Israel says it is only enforcing the law against building violations, but Palestinians say discriminatory planning practices make it impossible for them to get permits, leaving them no choice but to build illegally and risk demolition.
About a third of Jerusalem's 750,000 residents are Palestinian. They have residency status in Jerusalem and receive Israeli social benefits, but do not hold Israeli citizenship.
Tuesday's bulldozing of the buildings was carried out by a court order, none of the structures razed were homes and all had been illegally built and uninhabited, the Jerusalem municipality said in a statement.
But Palestinians disputed those claims, saying three of the demolished structures were homes and one was a warehouse.
Two daybeds and bags crammed with children's clothing and kitchen utensils were strewn outside one of the buildings.
Basem Isawi, 48, an unemployed contractor, stood stony-faced amid the rubble of his unfinished home, forbidding his six children to come out of the nearby house where they currently live to see what had happened to it.
Isawi said he built the almost-finished home illegally for about $25,000 because he was convinced the municipality would deny him a permit.
He had been notified of the impending demolition but did not know when it was set to happen, he said. Read More

Why the settlements under pressure

Why are we asking this now?

Because the US administration appears to be serious about getting Israel to freeze Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank. Previous US administrations said they wanted a freeze but in practice allowed Israel to continue with at least some building.

How did the settlements come about?

Related articles
•Israel rejects US plea to halt settlement building
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In the aftermath of Israel's victory in the 1967 Six Day War, which left it in control of Gaza and the West Bank (as well as the Golan Heights) successive governments gradually allowed, and eventually effectively managed, the creation of more and more civilian Israeli communities in occupied territory.

Several forces converged to encourage this growth: religious Zionists and others on the ideological right who believed in a greater Israel stretching from the Jordan to the Mediterranean and that the West Bank – or Judaea and Samaria, as they invariably call it – had been "liberated" by the Six Day War; elements in the military establishment who believed it would enhance Israeli security; and politicians who believed that it made sense to grab as much territory as possible for Jewish residents, to improve Israel's bargaining position in any future peace talks.


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